National Journal's CongressDaily | By Daniel Pruzin
GENEVA--The chairman of the World Trade Organization's ruling General Council maintained his downbeat tone July 13 on prospects for launching a new round of global trade talks later this year, declaring that members were "still too far away" from any agreement on the agenda for the round. In a frank assessment on the prospects of launching a round at the WTO's fourth ministerial conference in Doha, Qatar next November, chairman Stuart Harbinson of Hong Kong said that significant differences remained on issues such as implementation, agriculture and dispute settlement reform and that time was running out for reaching a consensus on the agenda for the negotiations.
"In all we have 55 normal working days left before Doha," noted Harbinson, whose role as chairman gives him a key role in the preparations for the ministerial conference. "It could not be clearer that we have very little time indeed left. Everyone is working very hard, but on too many of the issues before us we are still too far away from any significant convergence of positions."
Harbinson added that progress since June 25-26, when senior officials from WTO member countries met in Geneva to discuss preparations for Doha, have "frankly, not been sufficient...We still seem to be lacking that sense of the positive connections among issues which is necessary to arrive at a generally acceptable package to put it bluntly, we need to be developing now a sense of the necessary accommodations and tradeoffs among positions."
"In the light of the experience at our previous Ministerial Conference (in Seattle), I believe that anyone who thinks we can put this together at the last moment is living very dangerously indeed," the General Council chair added.
U.S., EU See Progress
The Seattle ministerial conference, mired by violent street protests, ended in failure after members failed to reach an agreement on the launch of a new round. Many officials blamed the inability of trade negotiators in Geneva, who forwarded their ministers with an unwieldy 32-page draft ministerial statement, for failing to narrow their differences sufficiently in advance of the meeting. Harbinson's tone contrasted with recent statements of the U.S. and European Union ambassadors to the WTO, who told a spirits industry conference July 11 that progress was being made on the launch of a round in Doha. U.S. ambassador Linnet Deily said she was "cautiously optimistic" that members were narrowing their differences on an agenda for the round, while EU ambassador Carlo Trojan declared that the last few months have seen "a new dynamic in the process" for preparing for the launch in Doha.
Harbinson earlier expressed disappointment with the July 25-26 senior officials meeting, declaring that many delegations had merely repeated their long-standing positions on the launch of a round and that there was less engagement among officials than he had originally hoped for.
In his latest assessment, the General Council chairman said informal meetings and consultations on issues such as intellectual property rights, investment, competition policy and other potential agenda items for the new round "were useful...However, I must say that the differences between positions has narrowed little, if at all, on the more difficult issues."
Harbinson added that other consultations organized by him and WTO director-general Mike Moore on the issues of non-agricultural market access (i.e. industrial tariffs), agriculture, and the implementation demands of developing countries also showed mixed results.
On non-agricultural market access, Harbinson said that consultations revealed many members regard the issue as part of the core business of the WTO and "believe it would be natural for this subject to be a part of any expanded negotiating agenda."
A broad consensus also appears to exist on the objectives for the talks, including negotiations on tariff and non-tariff measures without any a priori exclusions, substantial reduction of tariff and non-tariff barriers (including tariff peaks and tariff escalation), and recognition of special and differential treatment for developing countries.
On dispute settlement reform, Harbinson was more pessimistic, saying there was no consensus yet on the issue. "While some Members would like the draft amendment already tabled to be agreed before Doha, possibly with limited changes, others feel the draft text is not suitable and could not easily be fixed. Still others would prefer a much broader text."
Harbinson added that a number of countries "were ready to consider the idea of a mandated review of (WTO dispute settlement rules) post-Doha, but with certain conditions, such as a clear time-frame, a prioritization of issues, and that this be seen as a systemic matter separate from any single undertaking."
Harbison Pessimistic on Farming
A text put forward by Japan and Canada prior to the Seattle ministerial would have clarified procedures for seeking WTO-authorized trade retaliation against members which fail to implement panel rulings while reducing the time needed to bring a dispute complaint to a final conclusion, but the failure to reach agreement on the launch of a round prevented a deal on dispute reform from being reached. On agriculture, Harbinson was also pessimistic, declaring that consultations among members "have not indicated much change in position" on the issue.
Although WTO negotiations on agriculture and services are both already underway and will form the basis of any new trade round, members are disputing what the framework for the negotiations should be. Members of the Cairns Group of agricultural exporting nations argue that the WTO should revert to a draft Seattle ministerial text which gained wide support that set out goals such as the progressive elimination of agricultural export subsidies and substantial reductions in domestic supports should serve as the basis for the negotiations. European countries as well as Japan and South Korea counter that the mandate should continue to be Article 20 of the Agriculture Agreement, which calls for "continuing the process" of long-term "substantial progressive reductions" in support and protection for agriculture.
On implementation, which many officials see as the most difficult issue facing delegations in the run-up to Doha, Harbinson said "there is a sense of constructive engagement and I think a shared desire to find solutions. We are making progress on this very important issue, but significant difficulties remain."
Officials said that members would probably continue to work with a compromise text put forward by seven countries--Argentina, Morocco, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, Thailand, and Uruguay dividing the implementation demands into three groups: those on which "early agreement" could be reached; those that "have been solved, clarified or appear relatively less urgent"; and those that should be assigned to subsidiary bodies of the WTO, to be taken up again at a later date.
The Quad Group--the United States, the EU, Japan, and Canada--have put forward their own counter-proposal on implementation which offers far fewer concessions than those put forward in the compromise text.
The proposal calls on members to address four specific demands put forward by developing countries related to sanitary/phytosanitary controls, customs valuation procedures, the use of export subsidies and technology transfer to be addressed through continued work in the WTO's subsidiary bodies.
The Quad proposal also calls for enhanced technical assistance to be provided for implementing obligations related to the WTO's customs valuation and technical barriers to trade agreements.
Copyright c 2001 by The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc., Washington D.C.National Journal's CongressDaily:
