Inside US Trade | January 18, 2002
The major industrialized countries have begun informally floating the names of trade officials to chair negotiating groups for the new round of World Trade Organization negotiations, but trade officials are skeptical that the initial meeting of the Trade Negotiations Committee this month will succeed in reaching agreement on the chairmen.
Instead, sources say the TNC's Jan. 28 meeting will focus on the naming of its future chairman, which is proving to be highly controversial, and setting up a schedule of meetings for the following year. A senior U.S. official told business representatives this week that the WTO director general is likely to chair the TNC, according to informed sources.
But a group of developing countries, including Pakistan and many African countries, are resisting this emerging consensus in favor of naming the WTO Director General in his ex officio capacity as TNC chairman. In contrast, other key developing countries like India and Malaysia are backing the idea of having the director general head the TNC as are the industrialized Quad countries--the U.S., European Union, Canada and Japan, after initial hints they might push for a minister to be named.
But the Quad's push to name the chairmen of the five negotiating groups may have to wait until February, when the WTO General Council meets to name a new chairman of that body as well as of the various WTO committees. DG Mike Moore, who would chair the TNC until he leaves office in September, has said the TNC must be up and running by spring in order to have a chance to meet the ambitious 2005 deadline for the new round, trade officials said.
A number of key trade ministers are traveling to Geneva to push for progress in setting up the TNC. The EU's Pascal Lamy was in Geneva Jan. 16, and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick will be in Geneva on Jan. 21. Zoellick will meet with WTO officials on the new negotiations, according to a USTR spokesman.
Luis Ernesto Derbez from Mexico, the host of the next ministerial, is traveling to Geneva next week, signaling his desire to begin playing a role in the negotiations. Derbez first stops in Washington to meet with Zoellick today (Jan. 18).
The TNC debate also focuses on the desire by the Quad and other countries pushing for rapid progress to have chairmen appointed for terms lasting until the fifth ministerial, rather than for the one-year term put forward by Pakistan and its allies. But the officials being floated by the Quad could also run into resistance from a wider array of developing countries, many of whom support drawing solely from Geneva based ambassadors.
Two capital based New Zealand officials have been floated as possible chairmen of the rules negotiations, which covers antidumping, subsidies, regional trade agreements and fishing subsidies. The more likely of these is Crawford Falconer, a senior trade policy advisor, well know in WTO circles for serving on numerous dispute panels. The second New Zealander is a retired trade official, Hugh McPhail. Both are said to have extensive technical knowledge in these areas.
Also floated as a possible chairman of this group is Switzerland's Pierre-Louis Girard, who served as chairman of the Working Party on China's WTO Accession, but he is said not to be keen on taking on another contentious, and potentially lengthy, assignment.
Former Deputy Director General Anwural Hoda of India is being put forward to chair negotiations on market access for non-agricultural goods. But one source said this would not overcome the resistance of India or Malaysia to naming a non-Geneva-based official.
A secretariat official, former Director of the Division on Trade in Services David Hartridge, is being promoted to chair the negotiating group on services. But this could run into resistance by countries preferring that chairmen be drawn from the ranks of ambassadors, one official said.
For the environment negotiating group, three names have been floated. Two are well-respected Latin American ambassadors, Chile's Alejandro Jara Puga and Uruguay's Carlos Perez del Castillo. These two officials have also been floated as possible chairmen for other negotiating groups like rules.
The third name under consideration for the environmental group is a Japanese capital based official, Ambassador Kasuo Asakai, who has served as Ambassador for International Economic Affairs and Global Environmental Affairs.
Both sides of the debate on agriculture, the EU and Japan on the one hand, and the Cairns group of agriculture exporters on the other, have voiced support for Hong Kong Ambassador Stuart Harbinson to chair that committee.Inside US Trade:
