Inside US Trade | February 1, 2002
Weeks of procedural wrangling between industrialized and developing country members of the World Trade Organization over how to structure a new round of negotiations have raised the profile, and the prospect for negotiations, on developing countries' outstanding demands on the implementation of existing trade agreements. But as part of the deal, developing countries dropped or scaled back some of their procedural objections to the proposed structure of the Trade Negotiations Committee.
The improved status of developing countries' priority issues is reflected in General Council Chairman Stuart Harbinson's proposals for the TNC structure that officials expected to be agreed at a WTO meeting yesterday (Jan. 31).
Specifically, Harbinson's proposals strengthens the presumption that all developing countries' implementation demands, both those that fall under the explicit negotiating mandates and those that do not, will be part of the agenda, according to trade officials. The ministerial declaration that launched the negotiations in November stipulated that the implementation issues falling under explicit negotiating mandates would become part of the negotiations, while the others would be considered by WTO subsidiary bodies.
In addition, the Harbinson proposal reflects a push by Pakistan, which has also been at the forefront in raising procedural issues with respect to the TNC. It proposes special sessions of the Committee on Trade and Development for the review of the special and differential treatment developing countries are due under various WTO agreements.
Although Harbinson's proposal does not call for negotiations on these S&D issues, it raises the status of the discussions because it provides for a special session of the committee. This mirrors the treatment of the other negotiating areas, such as agriculture, which will be handled in special sessions of their relevant WTO committees, according to the proposal.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, speaking to a business group on Jan. 31, took note of Pakistan's role in the Geneva fight, but attributed it to its Ambassador Munir Akram not the Pakistani government as a whole. "The TNC process has had "some stumbles due to our good friends in Pakistan. where the ambassador clearly doesn't pay attention to the people [in the capital]," Zoellick said.
With respect to the implementation issues, the Harbinson proposal reads, "Negotiations on outstanding implementation issues will take place in the relevant bodies in accordance with the provisions of paragraph 12 of the Doha Ministerial Declaration and of the Decision on Implementation-Related Issues and Concerns of 14 November 2001."
Paragraph 12 of the declaration was somewhat ambiguous about the status of implementation demands that did not fall readily under mandates established in the declaration, saying they should be referred to subsidiary bodies for a report at year's end to the TNC. But the paragraph does not group them under a general category for negotiations, as Harbinson's proposal now does.
Implementation demands on such areas as textiles and sanitary and phytosanitary measures are outside the negotiating mandates established in the declaration. The U.S. had been adamant in Doha that it could not negotiate additional textile concessions.
With these substantive concessions on implementation addressed, developing countries dropped or scaled back a number of procedural demands that held up the formation of the TNC, which was scheduled to hold its kick-off meeting of the TNC on Jan. 28.
The fight was divisive enough to keep WTO director general Mike Moore from traveling to Washington this week before attending the World Economic Forum in New York on the weekend.
The debate has pitted a shifting group of developing countries India, Pakistan, China and a number of African and Caribbean countries against the Quad--the U.S., European Union, Canada and Japan--Latin American and some Southeast Asian countries and Korea. As late as last week, Zoellick and EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy dismissed the fight as a strictly procedural issue.
Harbinson was expected to introduce his proposal on TNC procedures and practices yesterday (Jan. 31) and then invite delegates to put on the record their views and interpretations of his plan. WTO members would then proceed to decisions to name the director-general as TNC chairman and to set up the negotiating groups.
Officials said it was likely consensus solutions could be found to two vexing questions based on Harbinson's proposals--the chairmanship of the TNC and the ability of negotiating group chairs to forward draft text on their own responsibility in order to break deadlocks.
The question of the TNC chairmanship, which until late last week was the focus of the procedural fight, will likely be settled with a decision that sets the stage for a rematch in 2005 if the negotiations are not wrapped up. Developing countries, including Pakistan and some African and Caribbean countries, who had resisted naming the Director-General in his ex-officio capacity to head the TNC, were close to agreeing on language that ends the term for the chairmanship coincident with the end of talks.
The paper also says that no precedent is set for who will then head the TNC should talks drag on. This means that DG Mike Moore will chair until September, followed by Thailand's Panitchpakdi Supachai for his three-year term. The compromise serves as a bulwark against developing countries' fear that the subsequent director-general, which many believe will again be from a Western country, will shepherd the talks in their final stage.
Developing countries' desire to prevent negotiating group chairs from drafting texts on their own responsibility is not reflected in the Harbinson proposal on principles and practices. Instead Harbinson's paper says "In their regular reports to overseeing bodies, Chairpersons should reflect consensus, or where this is not possible specify substantive differences. Developing countries want to avoid a repeat of the pre-Doha process that led to a compromise on investment, which went further than they wanted.
Another procedural fight centered on whether the chairs of these groups should be drawn solely from the ranks of Geneva ambassadors, as members of the Like Minded Group demanded in a Jan. 28 paper, reprinted below, or whether capital based officials can also be enlisted, as the Quad prefers. Harbinson's draft finesses that dispute by saying chairs "should be selected from among Geneva-based representatives in the majority. Other qualified individuals nomitated by Member governments could also be considered."
Selection of the actual officials is not expected until the General Council meeting Feb. 14.
On the eve of the Jan. 31 TNC meeting, one additional procedural question remained contentious. It involved the push by the group of developing countries to have vice-chairmen for the TNC and its subgroups, a demand that the Quad and its allies oppose as procedurally awkward and requiring unnecessary wrangling over appointments. But developing countries apparently dropped that demand. There is no mention of vice-chairmen for the TNC or the negotiating groups.
Also, India and Bulgaria had pushed to broaden the mandate for special sessions of the Council on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights that deals with mandated negotiations on an international registry for geographic indications for wines and spirits. They want this group to also take up the issue of extending protections to other products, such as yogurt and rice. However, the EU, which also backs extension to additional products, has been largely silent on the issue, trade officials said.
Countries who oppose this extension, like the U.S. and other new world agriculture exporters, argue that there is no mandate for such negotiations, only a direction for further work in the TRIPS Council until the end of the year when a recommendation on future action is due to the TNC.
Harbinson's proposed solution says that this and an additional issue, the protection of traditional knowledge in intellectual property rules, will be addressed "in regular meetings of the TRIPS Council on a priority basis."
In terms of the areas with explicit negotiating mandates, agriculture and services will be conducted in special sessions of those committees, environment talks will be held in special of the Committee on Trade and Environment and the wines and spirits protections in special session of the TRIPS Council. Dispute settlement rules will be handled in special sessions of the Dispute Settlement Body. Special negotiating groups will be set up for market access for industrial products and for rules, which covers antidumping, subsidies and regional agreements.Inside US Trade:
