GENEVA--Members of the World Trade Organization have agreed on a work program for addressing the contentious issue of how to deal with the difficulties faced by its poorer members in implementing existing WTO agreements.
Trade diplomats gathered at a June 22 meeting of the WTO's ruling General Council approved a program of meetings on implementation with the goal of concluding discussions by the time of the WTO's fourth ministerial meeting, which must take place sometime next year.
WTO Director-General Mike Moore welcomed the agreement, noting that for "many of our member governments the problems related to implementing WTO agreements are the most important issues facing the organization today."
Members decided in early May to hold the special sessions of the General Council in order to discuss the technical, administrative, and financial problems developing countries face in complying with agreements on protection of intellectual property rights (TRIPS), antidumping, subsidies, investment, sanitary/phytosanitary measures (SPS), and others concluded during the Uruguay Round of negotiations. Deadlines for complying with a number of these agreements expired at the end of last year.
Egypt, India, Nigeria, and a number of other developing countries placed the implementation issue front and center in the preparations for the WTO's Seattle ministerial meeting, insisting that their support for the launch of the new round was conditional on their concerns being addressed.
With the Seattle meeting ending in failure, many trade diplomats see progress on implementation as the key to securing developing country support for relaunching the aborted round.
Japan's Ambassador to the WTO Koichi Haraguchi told the General Council meeting that while implementation was important for efforts to revive the round, some elements under discussion were unlikely to be resolved in the special sessions and would have to be negotiated within the context of a new round.
Canada concurred, arguing that many of the implementation issues were best tackled within the broader context of a round. But countries such as India and Malaysia said implementation should be tackled as a separate issue and not linked in any way with future activities of the WTO.
Accounting for Issues Raised in Draft
Members agreed in May that the discussions on implementation would take account of the issues raised by a number of developing countries in a draft ministerial text for Seattle dated Oct. 19, in particular paragraphs 21 and 22 of the text, which essentially call for a re-writing of many existing WTO agreements. Paragraph 21 calls for the immediate addition of special and more flexible provisions for developing countries to WTO agreements on agriculture, antidumping, subsidies, SPS, technical barriers to trade, textiles, trade-related investment measures (TRIMs), TRIPS, customs valuation, and others. Paragraph 22 calls on the General Council to conduct a full and comprehensive review of the problems faced by members in implementing existing WTO agreements, with an initial focus on the agreements mentioned above.
The work program on implementation calls on members to discuss issues raised under paragraphs 21 and 22 during the next special session scheduled for Oct. 18-19 as well as those raised in the compilation of members' proposals for Seattle dated Nov. 18. A further special session will be held on Dec. 18-19 where members will take decisions on "appropriate action where possible" and decide on the organization of further work.
By Daniel Pruzin
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