Oxfam GB Discussion Paper
March 2000

This discussion paper was produced by the Oxfam GB Policy Department. It draws heavily on a paper commissioned from Jacob Werksman, Senior Lawyer at Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development (FIELD), London, for a workshop on ‘WTO Institutional Reform: A Development Perspective’, held in Geneva in February 2000. The workshop was sponsored by the South Centre Pilot Project on WTO and Oxfam GB.

For further information, please contact Penny Fowler, Policy Adviser:
Tel: + 44 1865 312331
Fax: + 44 1865 312245
Email: pfowler@oxfam.org.uk
Website: http://www.oxfam.org.uk

The WTO is facing a crisis of legitimacy. In the aftermath of Seattle, the one point on which most WTO Members appear to have reached consensus is that the Organisation’s method of operation has become fundamentally unworkable. Even those WTO Members most in favour of a new Round concede that the WTO’s shadowy processes are more "medieval" than Millennial.

This paper argues that if the WTO is to produce decisions that are both effective and legitimate, its institutional arrangements must be reformed to reflect its increasing membership, and the broadening scope and complexity of the issues that it covers. Proposals for institutional reform must begin by addressing demands for greater transparency and participation, particularly from developing country Members, but also from representatives of civil society.

In Seattle, African, Caribbean and some Latin American Member countries took unprecedented steps publicly to register their frustration at being excluded from the decision-making process. Their crucial concern is representation in policy-making processes. The paper considers:

• different models by which economically and politically weaker developing country Members could use formal or informal constituency groups to ensure that the huge numbers of people they represent have a voice at the WTO.

Making use of the Dispute Settlement System (DSS) is another crucial requirement for developing countries’ effective participation in the WTO. In theory, this system should strengthen and protect the interests of economically weaker WTO Members which are less capable of exercising informal, diplomatic means for ensuring enforcement of trade rules. It is, however, clear that participating in the DSS requires significant human and technical resources that are beyond the means of many developing country Members. Options for reform include:

• the adoption of more specific special and differential treatment with regard to the timing of filings and the implementation of rulings involving developing countries.
• the provision of more technical assistance for developing countries, and particularly least-developed countries, in bringing and defending WTO disputes.

Experience from the GATT and other international organisations show that constructive and open debates are essential to achieve successful negotiating outcomes. Options for reform that would improve the external transparency of the WTO and help to increase public confidence that decisions taken there reflect the widest possible range of affected interests include:

• de-restricting WTO documentation to provide real-time public access.
• increasing national parliamentary scrutiny of WTO policy-making.
• establishing an accreditation scheme for and increasing the level of informal dialogue with civil society groups.
• allowing civil society representatives to contribute arguments relevant to WTO disputes.

The Seattle talks re-emphasised tensions between WTO rules and international conventions and treaties on human rights and the environment. WTO Members should consider how best to ensure that WTO rules contribute to other international commitments such as the 2015 human development targets. This may require:

• reforming the WTO mandate to make explicit that trade is not an end in itself.
• more effective coordination between the WTO and other international institutions.
• establishing mechanisms to improve understanding of the linkages between international trade policy and equally important non-trade objectives, for example by expanding the scope of the Trade Policy Review Mechanism.
• establishing mechanisms to monitor the poverty impact of WTO sanctions.

The current period of reflection must produce WTO reforms that address demands for greater transparency and participation, particularly from developing country Members, but also from representatives of civil society. This will be essential for the WTO to overcome its current crisis of legitimacy and, ultimately, for the achievement of a more equitable international trading regime.

The collapse of the WTO Ministerial Conference in Seattle has been attributed to a multitude of circumstances. These range from conspiracies formed around American Presidential politics, to the impact of a wave of anger against the pace and consequences of globalisation. In the aftermath, the one point upon which most WTO Members appear to have reached consensus is that the Organisation’s method of operation has become fundamentally unworkable. Even those WTO Members most in favour of a new Round concede the WTO’s shadowy processes are more "medieval" than Millennial, and have been "outgrown" by a larger, more diverse and more engaged membership.

As heads cool after Seattle, questions have been raised as to whether the breakdown demands a reform of the institution as a whole, or whether it merely revealed flaws in the management and timing of only one of the WTO’s institutional dimensions: the Ministerial Conference faced with demands for the launch of a new Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations. Between Ministerial Conferences, the WTO seemed to have been operating smoothly. Previous efforts to launch trade Rounds under the GATT system had similarly buckled under pressure, but were later re-launched when political conditions improved.

There are, however, sound reasons to believe that Seattle did expose a serious "constitutional" crisis. Since the WTO came into being in 1995, it has not proved capable of reaching consensus on a significant issue of substance. In this decision-making vacuum, policy is formed instead by non-decisions, that allow the status quo to prevail, and by the creeping judicial activism of the WTO dispute settlement system. It is unlikely to be in the long-term interests of any WTO Member to allow this combination of ambiguity and unpredictability to continue indefinitely.

This note seeks to structure a discussion on ways in which WTO procedures and institutions could be reformed to make positive, "legislative" decision-making both more likely, and more transparent, accessible and responsive to the interests of the entirety of its Membership. The central thesis is that if the WTO is to produce decisions that are both effective and legitimate, it will require institutional arrangements that are better tailored to its increasing membership, and to the broadening scope and complexity of the issues that it covers. Proposals for more efficient decision-making must begin by addressing demands for greater transparency and participation, particularly from developing county Members, but also from representatives of civil society.

Institutional reform cannot, however, address what Oxfam believes are the fundamental inequities in many of the WTO rules. The "single undertaking" approach of the Uruguay Round, which the Quad countries have sought to extend to future rounds, wrongly assumes a parity in the readiness of all WTO Members to undertake commitments in areas such as intellectual property rights and investment liberalisation. Many developing country economies are not prepared for such reforms, and should not be pressurised into such "all or nothing" bargains.

Oxfam believes that any reform of WTO processes must be complemented by concrete moves to change unfair trade rules and measures which disadvantage poor countries. More than ever before, the major trading powers need to demonstrate political commitment to ensuring that developing countries derive a fair share of the benefits of any further multilateral trade liberalisation. A relatively easy place to start, is for developed countries to grant tariff and quota free market access for all exports from the least-developed countries, outside of any negotiations towards a new round. This would both generate economic benefits for poor countries and people, and provide an important signal of goodwill.

The discussion that follows is divided into four main parts. The first two parts focus on the institutions and procedures governing the WTO’s two primary functions: 1) agenda setting and decision-making, and 2) dispute settlement. Part three explores opportunities for improving the external transparency of the WTO system to civil society. Part four examines the WTO in the broader context of global governance and its relationship to other international institutions and mechanisms.

This part seeks to raise and to provide a framework for addressing the following questions about agenda setting a decision-making:

• Do WTO formal rules and informal practices exclude the effective participation of developing countries?
• Is WTO institutional reform in the interest of developing country Members?
• Are reforms possible/necessary at the formal or the informal level?
• If so, what models and precedents from other institutions might guide such a reform?

In exploring models, precedents and recent new proposals for redesigning the WTO, the discussion will focus on two main questions:

• Is there a need for a smaller or "executive body" within the WTO?
• What principles or rules could help to create formal or informal "constituencies" within the WTO membership?

The WTO, like all international institutions, has both formal and informal rules that shape decision-making. Formal rules are, by definition transparent in their design. Because they have been brought into force by the consent of states, in theory they have an inherent legitimacy. But that consent may itself not have been achieved by legitimate means. Furthermore, the combination of states’ interest that established the institution’s formal rules may have changed over time, opening a gap between past and present legitimacy. Into these gaps informal practices tend to appear. By contrast, informal mechanisms can be inherently non-transparent in nature, both to members of the regime, and to the outside world. Informal practices may not have emerged through the express consent of the membership. They may, nonetheless have a de facto legitimacy if they reflect the interests of all participating states.

The WTO Charter sets out the formal rules and institutions that govern WTO decision-making, which, in essence, provide for one equal vote for each member and universal participation of all members in all meetings. Decisions are to be taken by consensus, which is reached when "no Member, present at the meeting when the decision is taken, formally objects to the proposed decision." If consensus should fail, various rules of One-Member-One-Vote (OMOV) majority voting can be invoked. On their face, these rules appear to be a model of democracy.

However, the participatory and "democratic" nature of the WTO’s formal rules masks the informal procedures that govern day-to-day decision-making. Voting has been and continues to be avoided in the WTO, and indeed has never taken place. Consensus-based decision-making provides an environment in which the strong and the few can block decisions until they are satisfied their interests are protected. It is difficult for developing country Members to resist a consensus pushed by countries with greater economic power and higher stakes in the decision, particularly if they fear that they may lose more than they gain by making any one particular stand. This situation was best illustrated in the context of the appointment of the WTO’s new Director General, which most likely would have been resolved differently had the developing country majority of WTO Members been allowed to express their numerical power through a vote.

With regard to the negotiation of new rules, each previous General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)¹ round of trade negotiations developed its own methods of negotiation, but followed a basic top-down, pyramidal approach. Tariff reductions operate on the basis of reciprocal; largely bilateral deals struck between the major trading countries, which are then extended outward via the Most-Favoured Nation (MFN) principle.² Negotiations would typically begin with the core group of "Quad" countries (Canada, the EC, Japan and the US), and would then, through the "Green Room" process, seek to accommodate the interests of mid-sized developed and the largest developing countries. Thus, informal methods have emerged to fill the power gap between a system that is formally based on OMOV, but that is regulating economic interests overwhelmingly concentrated in the governments of a handful of members.

Any proposals to reform the WTO will have to recognise that WTO informal structures responded to elements that have been essential to decision-making in the past:

• the need to negotiate in groups of a manageable size, and
• the need to accommodate the interests of economically powerful Members.

The risk inherent in seeking to re-balance these informal arrangements, either through informal or formal arrangements, is that core negotiations could be driven further underground.

Other international institutions have sought to bridge the gap between efficiency in decision-making and universal participation by creating Executive Bodies that limit participation to a manageable number of Members. Indeed, the WTO is a rare exception in large, rule-based institutions, to have no formal Executive Board of limited Membership. Even its General Council which is intended to run the institution on a day-to-day basis, is open to all Members.

Limiting the number of seats at the table requires that the membership form itself into representative constituencies. The "ticket of admission" to the table can be designed in any number of ways. The chart below indicates three basic categories of approaches common in international institutions: the "UN" OMOV/equitable geographic distribution system, the "Bretton Woods" shareholder model, and a third category of institutions with sui generis (of its own kind) rules designed to reflect members’ interests related to specialised areas of international co-operation.

The system of one member one vote (OMOV) combined with equitable geographic distribution (EGD) representation has become a hallmark of most UN institutions. This division of the globe dates back to a decision of the General Assembly, in 1965, adopted for the purposes of electing 6 Vice Presidents to help manage the UN’s growing ranks. EGD divides the world into 5 regional groupings: the African region, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean (GRULAC), the Western European and Others Group (WEOG), the Eastern European Group, and the Permanent Members of the Security Council.

The EGD principle is based on perceptions that this manner of dividing the world may have come reasonably close to reflecting common political, economic and cultural interests. The geographic aspect is stretched to allow Australia and New Zealand to join the US and Canada in the WEOG. The division of Europe into east and west was justified over the decades to reflect the common interests of the Communist Bloc. Until the end of the cold war, the system was perceived as legitimate by the majority of UN Members. It ensured that the developing countries could always command a 3/5s ratio of memberships in any bodies based on this principle, and could expect the two remaining groups of industrialised countries to be on opposite sides of most ideological curtains.

The dividing lines followed in the EGD system appear increasingly anachronistic. This is most evident in the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, the estrangement of Russia, and the expansion of the European Union. Asia, too is becoming more diverse as a region, which by the UN methodology stretches to include all countries between Jordan and Japan. In practice, the regional groups system has been used primarily for the purposes of nominating officials for election to bureau and executive bodies, and not as a means for substantive decision-making. Within UN bodies, policymaking constituencies have instead tended to employ informal interest groups, or caucuses, for substantive decision-making. These are discussed in the next section.

Any developing country WTO Members thinking of importing the EGD system to the WTO will have to assess whether the UN regional groupings make sense from a trade perspective. While the stability of the UN regional groups has proved a source of predictability within that system over the past 50 years, it has not proved particularly flexible in the face of changing circumstances. A question to be considered is whether geographical divisions, which by definition are unchangeable make sense in an economic context, characterised by constant and rapid change.

The Bretton Woods system, with its one share/one vote or a weighted majority system, is based roughly on the practice of share ownership and voting within commercial institutions. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were to provide functions similar to commercial banks, acting as publicly funded "lenders of last resort" for development projects and balance of payments difficulties. The formation of constituencies in the Bretton Woods system is made necessary by the existence of executive bodies of limited size. For both the Fund and the Bank, the full membership meets annually as a Board of Governors, but day to day operations are overseen by an elected Board of Executive Directors. Election to the Executive Board (and thus the formation of constituencies) is based on the institutions’ allocations of shares and voting rules.

The distribution of votes in both the Fund and the Bank begins with the allocation of an equal number of votes to each Member, in recognition of the principle of sovereign equality. Within the IMF, each member is then given additional votes on the basis of its quota allocation, which is calculated from its respective economic size and strength. The calculation is based on the "Bretton Woods" formula which takes into account GDP, international reserves, and a number of other macroeconomic criteria. In practice this formula is subject to a high degree of political manipulation as Members seek to maintain power within the system. The size of a member’s quota determines not just the amount of votes it holds, but also the amount of gold or currency reserves that member must be prepared to make available to the Fund for members’ use. Similarly, a member’s votes in the Bank are determined by its share in the Bank’s capital. Thus the main rationale for this approach is to ensure that the power structure within the institution gives the most power to those members that have the largest "investment" in the institution.

The five largest shareholders of both the Fund and the Bank are automatically entitled to seats on the Executive Boards of each institution. The remaining 19 seats are filled either by individual members who have reached a certain threshold amount of quota/share ownership, or by group constituencies formed by the remaining shareholders. The membership of the group constituencies changes occasionally, but a number of basic patterns have emerged: regional/northern constituencies, including the Nordic group and the EC group; regional southern constituencies, including south east Asia, and southern Africa; mixed North/South constituencies that are anchored by a large Northern shareholder and that have formed along historical/colonial ties, such as the Spain/Latin America, and Canada/Caribbean groups. Once elected, the members of the Executive Board have the authority to cast the number of votes held by the constituency they represent. While the Executive Directors are not allowed to "split up" their votes (they must vote all the votes within their constituency the same way), they are not bound to canvas or consult members of their constituency before voting. Most decisions are taken by consensus, though voting does occasionally prove necessary on controversial issues.

The Bretton Woods weighted voting and elected constituency system has been criticised as "illegitimate" for a number of reasons. Although the shareholder system allows investors the power to protect their investment, it fails to reflect that the impact of Bank and IMF policy is felt most strongly by its minority shareholders. These countries, which draw most frequently on IMF/Bank resources, and are most likely to be subject to its conditionalities, should have a more powerful voice in how policies and priorities are set and enforced. The system leaves a significant "democratic deficit" as well. The Bretton Woods formula upon which the power structures are based, does not take into account the relative population of members, allowing rich, but less populous countries more votes than poorer but larger countries.

Other examples of weighted majority voting systems include international commodity agreements, which balance power between producers and consumers of the commodity and weight votes by market share; the International Energy Agency, which weights votes on the basis of oil consumption; and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which seeks to balance the rights of coastal, land-locked, small island and other relevant groupings of states.

Constructing a weighted majority system for the WTO based on objective criteria would be technically possible, but overwhelmingly challenging from a political perspective. It would require agreement on a number of objective criteria by which voting rights could be shared out. WTO Members do not, of course, invest in shares of the WTO, so some other criteria would have to be agreed. The WTO already calculates a "scale of assessments" for the purpose of collecting the Organisation’s budget. According to the WTO’s financial rules, each Member’s contribution to the budget is assessed in accordance with its share of international trade (imports plus exports) in relation to the total international trade of all WTO Members in goods, services and intellectual property rights. Members that drop below a certain level are required to make a symbolic contribution. If the Bretton Woods approach would apply to the WTO, votes could be distributed along similar lines.

Using a formally weighted decision-making system to distribute power and construct constituencies within the WTO would basically formalise the informal structures that allow the most powerful trading nations to dominate the WTO processes. It is difficult to imagine any political support from the WTO’s present developing country majority.

One hybrid between the UN and the Bretton Woods systems that may hold some useful lessons for building constituencies and executive bodies in the WTO, is the Council of the Global Environment Facility (GEF). The GEF underwent a conscious process of restructuring aimed at transforming an informal and donor-dominated arrangement into "an equitable and balanced system of governance". This required a balancing of power between industrialised countries, which are the main source of GEF funds, and the developing countries and the economies in transition which would host GEF projects.

While all 166 GEF Participants may attend the Participants’ Assembly, the main authority and day-to-day functioning of the GEF are vested in the Council. The Council is made up of 32 constituencies structured on the basis of a combination of donor/recipient status, geographical distribution and self-selection in accordance with agreed subjective criteria, as is indicated in the chart, below. The donors’ right to protect their financial investment is balanced against the recipients’ right to influence funding policies on projects taking place in their countries. The use of subjective criteria to guide the formation of constituencies encourages Parties to ensure, for example that at least some of the constituencies are held by countries that share global, regional and sub-regional concerns, or that have natural resource endowments or environmental vulnerability in common.

Voting (which has never taken place) would be carried out on a double weighted majority, which requires both a majority based on level of contribution (which favours donors) and a majority based on the number of Participants (which favours recipients).

Informal mechanisms for decision-making and constituency building tend to emerge when formal rules fail to adequately reflect the balance of power or the aggregation of interests that lie behind the institution. Informal constituencies or caucuses are particularly common in large OMOV systems that are operated primarily by consensus. In practice, consensus-based decision-making operates under the authority of a chairman of the meeting. The chair must formulate the decision put to the group, must interpret statements made by parties, and must develop a "sense of the meeting" before determining whether a consensus has been reached. This judgement is often based on whether a representative threshold number of parties, or of informal constituencies, has supported, or not objected to the proposal.

In such circumstances, a less powerful participant must decide whether its voice should be heard as one in a long list of interventions, or whether it can achieve its ends more effectively by joining with like-minded parties in a single voice. Informal groups tend to provide the only efficient means to structure the negotiations from one hundred plus diverse views of individual parties into tractable options.

For the purposes of this discussion, informal mechanisms include those that may be quite formal in nature but that are not defined by the institution’s own official rules. There are circumstances in which arrangements made outside the institution, have an influence on group dynamic and constituency building within the institution. Within the UN system, one of the most active caucuses is the Group of 77 Developing Countries and China. Established from the 77 original developing country participants at the first UN Conference on Trade and Development in 1964, the G-77 now has 133 members. Its minimalist framework of rules is based upon the 1967 Charter of Algiers and a rich tradition of practices. In many processes that have a North/South dimension, the meetings of the G-77 provide the most important venue for building negotiating capacity and consensus among developing countries. The 77 has Chapters in each of the UN host cities, and a special arrangement, known as the Group of 24, which supports the Group at the Bank and the Fund in Washington. Although the G-77 met at ministerial level in Seattle, it has not been active in the GATT/WTO.

Similar groups have emerged from among developed countries as well. The G-5, G-7, G-8 and G-10 are each arrangements of the richest industrialised countries that meet regularly to work towards common policy objectives in various financial institutions. While particularly active in the IMF and the Bank, in the WTO context, the key members of these groups co-operate through the Quad.

Informal caucuses and constituency groups also form within institutions in response to particular negotiations. Recently, the institutions and procedures of the Multilateral Environmental Agreements have seen the formation of such groupings. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change operates by consensus, in part because it has failed to adopt rules of procedure. In response, the industrialised countries have formed groups defined by a basic allegiance either with the approach and policies of the US (the so-called JUSCANNZ or "Umbrella Group")³ or with the European positions (the EC + group). Although the G-77 continues to be the main forum for discussions among developing country parties, subgroups have formed to represent the interest of small island states (AOSIS), Central American states, oil exporting developing countries, and African countries. The presence of these constituencies has undoubtedly helped to clarify and reduce the number of written submissions and oral interventions. Informal negotiations amongst small groups are more representative and legitimate when the caucuses are represented. This has generally streamlined the negotiations and made consensus possible on extremely controversial issues.

In the few weeks following Seattle a number of proposals for the reform of the WTO institutions have been put forward. The most public have come from developed countries, indeed from three of the four members of the Quad. The proposals have not been fully or officially described, and must be taken as initial thoughts on these issues. They are all driven by a need to create a smaller, representative grouping of Members that could help to build consensus for the larger group.

Press reports of a Canadian proposal suggest an "executive committee" or a "board of directors" modelled on the Security Council. It is unclear as to what aspects of the Security Council Canada finds attractive, but mention of a need for "real structural improvements" suggests that they wish to explore a formal mechanism involving representative constituencies of Member states.

Press reports of a proposal from Japan suggest a less formal approach, using the term "Advisory Council" to describe a body of limited membership that might help Members to agree priorities for negotiation.

The most fully developed proposal has come from the European Commission, which has released a strategy document on short and long-term reforms at the WTO. In the short term, and with a view to helping to launch a "New Round" of trade negotiations, the Commission tentatively suggests:

• Establishing an "Eminent Persons Group" to assist the Director General to analyse institutional issues and make recommendations to the Membership.
• Requiring that any informal group report back its findings to a plenary session with an opportunity for any Member to express its views.
• Reducing the number of WTO Meetings.

In the longer term, the Commission suggests:

• Holding an annual open meeting of the WTO, aimed at highlighting for the public and parliamentarians, policy issues affecting the world trading system.
• Holding an annual meeting of parliamentarians to increase awareness of members’ trade policies.
• Developing the "best consultation procedures to foster consensus in a manner that is transparent and participatory while ensuring effectiveness".
• Enhancing the role of the General Council as "a forum for policy dialogue and to maintain overall control of WTO activities.
• Establishing a "Consultative Group", of limited membership, including capital-based officials, that would have "no decision-making powers, but which could advise the Director General and, where appropriate, present recommendations to the General Council".

In addition to the above proposals, which have emerged specifically in response to the Seattle failure, an Advisory Commission, set up by the US Congress and chaired by Professor Alan Meltzer has recently made recommendations for the reform of seven key international institutions, including the WTO. The report warns that "[a]s WTO decisions move to the broader range of issues now within its mandate, there is considerable risk that WTO rulings will override national legislation in areas of health, safety, environment, and other regulatory policies", and recommends limiting the WTO’s authority to impose sanctions on a country for violation of WTO rulings or decisions, unless these have been subject to explicit legislative enactment at the national level.

Generally, the WTO’s formal agenda-setting and decision-making rules based on large, unweighted majority voting, would appear to favour the "weak and the many" developing country Membership. The burden is on the strong and the few to co-opt, coerce and convince the majority to back any new initiative. The resulting deadlock of "non-decision" can also be said to generally favour developing countries. Many developing countries have argued that the institution needs to focus on administering and implementing existing WTO rules, (particularly with regard to market access on agriculture and textiles) rather than advancing the built-in agenda, or expanding the WTO’s coverage to new disciplines.

Many developing countries have also expressed reluctance to tackle the long intractable issues related to the interpretation of existing WTO rules, such as those related to process and production methods affecting environmental and labour standards. Finally, it may favour developing countries to have blocked the decisions that would have clarified the status of various grace periods and peace clauses that run through the WTO Agreements. These non-decisions have, however, left a number of WTO Agreements in a state of uncertainty, which, as has been suggested, will likely be resolved only through the dispute settlement process, where the developing countries’ strength in numbers has no purchase.

Sketchy proposals for reform from Quad countries focus on supplementing the formal aspects of the institution. Working from the assumption that efficiency in decision-making can best be achieved through a limited number of key countries, it has been proposed that decision-making be placed under the direction of an "Executive Body". It is easy for wary developing countries to imagine that any such arrangement would include the main trading economies. The traditionally underrepresented Members would likely find themselves either excluded or herded into some form of constituency system. At its worse, such a mechanism could achieve little more than the formalisation of the Green Room process.

Promoting constituencies need not, however, be rejected out of hand by those developing country Members wishing to see progress in WTO agenda-setting and decision-making. Experience from other regimes suggests that large numbers of small countries can often benefit from the discipline of speaking with a single or several voices rather than speaking separately. This has, to some extent, already been happening within the GATT and the WTO, as common interest groups have formed along either regional or substantive lines. Position papers submitted prior to Seattle provide strong evidence of developing countries banding together on priority issues.

Thus, perhaps the most important strategic issue facing developing countries post-Seattle is whether to pursue constituency building on a formal or on an informal basis. As has been suggested, this choice will also depend on whether a Member’s basic strategy is to promote or to postpone decision-making at this time. It is worth noting that, however frustrated the developing country Membership may have been in Seattle, the initial calls for institutional reform of the WTO’s agenda-setting and decision-making procedures have come from industrialised countries.

If constituencies are pursued, account will need to be taken not only of the size and diversity of interests of the WTO’s membership, but also the shifting alliances that are likely to form across the WTO’s diverse agenda. In other words, it is possible that the same constellation of constituencies would not serve developing countries equally well, for example, on services issues as it would in agriculture. Although trade interests vary considerably among developing countries from the same geographical region, the emergence of regional trade agreements may help developing countries to identify common regional trade interests (and differences) for promotion at the WTO.

It is also important to note that around 30 developing country Members have no permanent representation in Geneva, and that many others are under-represented. There is a clear need for the provision of resources to ensure that all developing countries have adequately-staffed missions in Geneva, to facilitate their participation in the policy-making process.

The WTO Dispute Settlement System (DSS) has been described as the "jewel in the crown" of the WTO Agreements, providing, for the first time in the history of the GATT, a sound legal underpinning for the enforcement of trading rules. The DSS resolves disputes between Members through the exercise of compulsory jurisdiction over all Members (no Member can refuse to answer a complaint brought against it). It is empowered to make rulings and recommendations, and to authorise sanctions that are widely viewed as binding upon the defaulting Member.

The DSS is open to claims by any Member against any other Member. The formal rules of standing to bring a complaint, or to participate as a third party to a complaint are liberal. Any Member that considers its WTO benefits are being impaired by another Member may protect its interests by calling for the establishment of an ad hoc panel, or by appealing the decision of such a panel to the WTO’s standing Appellate Body. Panel and Appellate Body reports become binding on the disputants when they are adopted, by a rule of "negative consensus" (which requires all Members present to agree to block the report) by the WTO Membership sitting as the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB).

The quasi-judicial character of the DSS, which is limited to making objective assessments of facts, and clarifications of law, was intended to strengthen the rule-based character of the WTO. In theory, the rule of law should strengthen and protect the interests of less economically powerful WTO Members which are less capable of exercising informal, diplomatic means for advancing their causes.

The DSS has sought to further protect the interests of developing country Members by recognising that there may be inherent biases in perspectives of industrialised country panellists, and that some developing countries may not have sufficient human and technical resources to take full advantage of the DSS. The DSS thus provides that a developing country Member, when it is involved in a dispute with a developed country Member, may request that at least one of the panellists is from a developing country. Special, but rather vague provision is made to ensure that developing country Members involved in disputes are allowed sufficient time to prepare and present argumentation, and that their interests are taken into account in the design and surveillance of implementation of rulings and recommendations. Finally, the WTO Secretariat is instructed to make available qualified legal experts to developing country Members that request such assistance.

From less than five years of operation of the DSS, it is difficult to conclude whether developing country Members have had adequate access to and justice from these procedures. Generally, (and not surprisingly, given the increase in WTO rules and the compulsory nature of the WTO DSS) developing countries have been both complainants and respondents more frequently under the WTO than under the GATT. Generally, complainants tend to win WTO disputes, forcing changes in the trade policies of other Members. Of the 31 cases that have produced final rulings and recommendations as of this writing, the complaining party has been successful in all but five. Twelve cases have involved industrialised country Members only. Nine cases have been brought successfully by one or more developing countries against industrialised countries, and ten have been brought successfully by one or more developed country against a developing country.

It is difficult to assess the extent to which any developing country Member may have felt excluded from the process or hard done by the results. It is, however, clear from the sheer size and complexity of the Panel and Appellate Body reports that participating in WTO delegation requires significant human and technical resources. At the outset of 1999, the WTO Technical Co-operation and Training Division (TCTD) employed only two full-time legal officers and two part-time external consultants, and brought in other part-time legal consultants as necessary, in order to provide additional legal advice to developing countries. In practice, it seems unlikely that this level of support provided from within the Secretariat will have the resources and the independence to serve the wide range of developing countries in need of assistance.

With regard to the results of these cases, a number will have significant impacts on the trade and investment policies in developing countries. Some of these policies have undoubtedly been put in place to achieve development objectives. For example, India has been asked to revise its patent registration system and to dismantle trade measures designed to guard against balance of payments difficulties. Indonesia has been requested to dismantle a system of preferences aimed at promoting its domestic car industry. It is however, difficult to systematically attribute these results to "unfairness" in the DSS rather than to the nature of the substantive rules that the DSS is designed to enforce.

Two disputes that have raised controversy over the application of DSS procedures to developing countries are, ironically, cases in which developing countries were successful in complaints against industrialised countries. The recent Banana dispute exposed fundamental weaknesses in the system of sanctions under the Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU)⁴ in providing adequate leverage to enforce successful claims against richer countries. In that case, Ecuador was forced to rely upon US retaliatory sanctions to bring pressure on the EU. Had Ecuador brought the case on its own, it could neither have mustered nor afforded to muster adequate sanctions.⁵ Ecuador has since requested and received from the WTO authorisation to "cross-retaliate" against the EC by targeting European intellectual property rights and services trade, as well as product-based tariffs. However, the size and vulnerability of the Ecuadorian economy make it unlikely that such retaliation would harm the EC or would be in the interests of Ecuadorian consumers. Allowing the Dispute Settlement Body, under certain circumstances, to negotiate and impose multilateral sanctions could help level the playing field between developed and developing country disputants.

In a second dispute, a group of Asian countries brought a complaint against the US when it banned the import of shrimp and shrimp products from countries that had failed to put in place certain measures to prevent sea turtles from being killed by shrimping nets. Although successful in striking down the US measures, many developing countries objected to the reasoning upon which the Appellate Body based its decision, which implied that unilateral trade bans were justified in some circumstances. These countries expressed their concerns at the meeting of the Dispute Settlement Body convened to discuss the Appellate Body’s report. The DSS rule of "negative consensus" led to its adoption.

When the Dispute Settlement Understanding was adopted, Ministers agreed to undertake a review of its operation within four years of entry into force. This review was scheduled to be completed in 1999, but fell victim to Seattle. The Chairman of the Dispute Settlement Body summarised the positions of those Members he had consulted:

"the broad, general opinion that the DSU is central to the successful operation of the WTO; that, as Ministers stated in Singapore, it is working effectively; that its attributes, such as automaticity and predictability, are positive features as is its two-track approach allowing either the resolution of disputes by panel (and Appellate Body) recommendations and rulings, or the opportunity to pursue mutually agreed solutions."⁶

Contributions by developing countries to the review process reveal two types of concerns: 1) that the provisions in the DSU referring to the need to take into account developing country concerns are weakly worded and vague, and 2) developing countries have insufficient resources to defend their interests through the DSS. Proposals for reform include the adoption of more specific special and differential treatment with regard to the timing of filings and the implementation of rulings; and that the application of these concessions by the DSS should be systematically monitored and assessed.

Many developing country Members, and in particular least-developed country Members, have called for a higher level of technical assistance in bringing and defending WTO disputes than currently provided by the WTO Secretariat. A group of donor and potential recipient countries initiated, at Seattle, an Advisory Centre on WTO Law that will be positioned to provide such advice and assistance independently from the Secretariat. Many questions about how such a Centre will operate need to be resolved. It is not clear, for example, what kind of criteria will be used by the Centre to allocate what are likely to be scarce resources on the basis of the needs of the complainant or the merits of its claims.

Furthermore, Oxfam believes that the lack of clarity about the relationship between WTO rules and international human rights and environmental law means that the WTO dispute settlement system is de facto being left to reconcile the complex relationship between these areas on a case-by-case basis. Yet the WTO panels do not have the competence or expertise to adjudicate in these areas. Allowing joint panels, involving the WTO and other specialised UN bodies, to adjudicate in trade disputes relating to concerns about human rights and the environment may be more effective in achieving an appropriate balance between the different interests in any dispute. In any event, as the UN continues to strengthen its mechanism set up to monitor the implementation of economic and social rights, WTO regulations and their impact on the relevant standards will inevitably come under closer international scrutiny.

Although the lack of transparency of internal policy-making processes for some WTO Members must be addressed as a priority, there are a number of issues relating to the WTO’s external transparency and accountability that require consideration at the national and international levels. Decisions taken at the WTO affect the livelihoods of billions of people and their environments. Yet the vast majority of people know very little about this important international institution, or the decisions taken there by governments on their behalf. This low level of knowledge and understanding is exacerbated by the way in which the WTO currently operates, and there is increasing pressure from representatives of civil society to make WTO policy-making processes more open.

WTO member governments are supposed to represent the interests of the whole of their country’s population, or the ‘national interest’. In contrast, civil society groups organise around issues that may affect particular groups within countries, or that transcend national boundaries altogether. As the scope of its agreements expands and increasingly impinge on domestic policies and transboundary issues such as environmental protection, the "WTO is evolving from a technical negotiation forum driven by trade ministries towards a more politically-relevant organisation concerned with overall governance in global economic policy."⁷

Experience from the GATT and other international organisations show that constructive and open debates are essential to achieve successful negotiating outcomes. The 1992 Rio Declaration and Agenda 21 recognised that public access to information and participation in decision-making is a cornerstone for achieving the inter-linked social, economic and environmental goals of sustainable development.⁸ As such, there is a strong case for the WTO to consider how to improve the transparency and accountability of its decision-making processes for all relevant stakeholders, including civil society groups.

The term ‘civil society’ is generally used to embrace not-for-profit NGOs, business associations, labour unions, academia and the media. The WTO, however, uses the term NGOs to describe all organisations other than government, including business associations, labour unions, academia and the media. Article V:2 of the Agreement Establishing the WTO specifies that "[t]he General Council may make appropriate arrangements for consultation and cooperation with non-governmental organisations concerned with matters related to those of the WTO." Guidelines established in July 1996 recognise "the role NGOs can play to increase the awareness of the public in respect of WTO activities and [the General Council] agree[s] in this regard to improve transparency and develop communication with NGOs."

The WTO’s relations with civil society are managed in an ad hoc way, however, without reference to any long-term strategy for increasing openness and transparency. Some developing countries fear that increasing access for well-resourced Northern NGOs to WTO policy-making processes, particularly the dispute settlement system, may further reduce their own ability to influence WTO outcomes, especially on sensitive environmental and labour issues. The following section considers two forms of access to the WTO that are relevant for civil society - access to and input of information, and access to policy-making processes - and sets out some options for reform.

At present, most WTO documents can, as a matter of course, be kept from public view for up to six months after they have been circulated among the Members, and any Member may block their de-restriction by simply indicating its opposition. The delay in derestricting WTO documents seriously limits their value for public information, for example via accurate and timely media coverage.

The July 1996 WTO guidelines on NGO relations limit the WTO Secretariat to developing an informal dialogue with NGOs, which has so far taken the form of NGO briefings by Secretariat staff and the organisation of NGO symposia. In addition, there are informal day-to-day contacts between the WTO Secretariat, Member governments and civil society groups. Informal monitoring services, such as those provided by the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) and the South-North Development Monitor (SUNS), also provide civil society groups with additional insight into policy developments in Geneva.

The WTO has established an NGO section on the WTO website with specific information for civil society. In addition, a monthly list of NGO position papers received by the Secretariat is compiled and circulated for the information of Members.

Following the 1996 General Council decision on Procedures for the Circulation and De-restriction of WTO documents, the WTO Secretariat has made remarkable strides in providing, over the Internet, access to de-classified documents. Access to de-restricted documentation rivals, and in some circumstances surpasses, comparable UN and regional organisations. This is particularly the case with regard to dispute settlement documents.

However, working documents, meeting timetables and agendas and background notes by the Secretariat, which are key to following and influencing the day-to-day operations of the WTO, are generally restricted. Furthermore, there is a continued culture amongst WTO Members of secrecy surrounding negotiating text, as was demonstrated by the extremely short and non-substantive submissions by Members in the run-up to the Seattle Ministerial Conference.

There does appear to be increasing acknowledgement among developing country Members, who have been blamed for blocking proposals to relax rules on document restriction in the past, that this may have to change. A senior ACP official recently stated to the European Parliament’s Development and Cooperation Committee that "[t]here should be greater de-restriction of [WTO] documents since it is assumed [that] proposals are well-intentioned, then there should be no fear to make them public."⁹

Within UN processes, such as the negotiation of the Kyoto Protocol and Biosafety Protocol, countries’ positions and draft negotiating texts are made widely available to the public in real-time. While the WTO’s current rules may allow observers to reconstruct negotiations after the fact, they provide little opportunity for civil society groups to influence the outcome. Only with real-time access to working documents can civil society contribute meaningfully to the work of the WTO.

Since 1996, NGOs that are able to demonstrate links to trade issues, have been able to gain accreditation to Ministerial Conferences. This accreditation, however, provides only for very limited access to plenary sessions. Outside of Ministerial Conferences, civil society groups have no access to the day-to-day WTO administrative committees, either as observers or for the purpose of distributing information. The symposia organised by the WTO Secretariat and side events at Ministerial Conferences are the only "formal" channels of communication between civil society groups and trade diplomats.

The GATT/WTO system has been most hostile to NGOs among the broader range of civil society organisations. Although business groups have no formal rights of access to or participation in WTO institutions or procedures, governments have readily recognised that in defending national trade interests, they are in effect acting as spokesmen for the collective interests of the private commercial sectors of their economies. Large companies and trade associations drive domestic trade agendas and, formally or informally, trigger and shape trade disputes.

The arcane and complex nature of GATT law and economics has long attracted the attention of the academic community, and has required the GATT to engage academics. Some of the most powerful and influential individuals in the GATT/WTO system regularly move back and forth between the WTO and academia. Although often shy of public attention, the WTO has courted media attention. All the NGOs attending the close of the Uruguay Round negotiations gained access by securing press credentials.

The continued exclusion of NGO observers from all the working meetings of the WTO places the organisation decades behind the practice of most international organisations.¹⁰ Models that bridge the gap between full and no access include the constituency system developed for NGOs at the GEF Council and the Business and Industry Advisory Committee (BIAC) and Trade Union Advisory Committee (TUAC) within the OECD. Advisory committees of NGOs, such as the European Economic and Social Committee, provide a structured means for civil society to have formal input to inter-governmental processes. Views vary on how effective these mechanisms have been in providing civil society groups with a genuine voice in policy-making processes, but their formal nature ensures transparency and predictability, unlike the WTO’s informal interaction with civil society groups, which is insecure and potentially reversible.

UN treaty bodies are examples of institutional arrangements that have emerged since the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) and that have provided extensive access to their proceedings even when dealing with issues as politically sensitive as those before the WTO. The Kyoto Protocol negotiations, the Biosafety Protocol negotiations, and the negotiations on the Convention on Prior Informed Consent (PIC) Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade, have agendas that overlap significantly with the WTO Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary (SPS) and Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Committees. The Council of GEF, which deals with sensitive issues of domestic policy and finance, has allowed NGOs to observe all but the most sensitive of negotiations.

In addition, several international bodies involve civil society groups in policy review and reporting procedures similar to the WTO Trade Policy Review process. The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee, and the IMF have some kind of provision for receiving either written or oral submissions from NGOs during policy reviews and consultations.

While the Secretariat’s efforts to provide opportunities for dialogue between trade diplomats and NGOs through symposia and Conference side events are a welcomed development, they do little to dispel perceptions of a closed and secretive institution. Greater openness in policy-making processes would help to reassure the public that the decisions taken do not reflect the exercise of special interests.¹¹

NGOs have no access to WTO Dispute Panel or Appellate Body hearings or the meetings of the Dispute Settlement Body. Article 13.3 of the Dispute Settlement Understanding allows for technical contributions from "any relevant source" and states that panels "may consult experts to obtain their opinion on certain aspects of the matter…". In practice, NGO contributions have been considered in very few instances, for example, during the ‘shrimp-turtle’ case.

Many precedents from international dispute settlement provide representatives of civil society the opportunity to observe the process of decision-making and to contribute arguments relevant to the cases at hand. The underlying rationale for this is that panels should be able to consider a wide range of information and arguments in order to make the best decision possible. Other international tribunals, such as the International Court of Justice, and human rights tribunals, hold their sessions in public without invading sovereign privilege or interfering with the course of justice.

Other international economic institutions, such as the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation, have provided for formal channels whereby citizens affected by implementation of policy can bring their concerns to officials and can exercise a right to be heard.

The rulings of the Appellate Body on amicus curiae (friend of the court)¹² briefs have left panels with little guidance as to how to deal with such submissions. Further guidance must be provided by Members to the panels and the Appellate Body on how to filter and respond to arguments presented by representatives of civil society affected by the outcome of WTO disputes.

The WTO can increase the external transparency and openness of its decision-making processes without impinging on its nature as an inter-governmental organisation. In so doing, it will help to ensure that WTO agreements reflect the widest possible range of affected interests and to increase the legitimacy of WTO institutions and rules in the public eye.

There are strong arguments in favour of more open and transparent trade policy-making in all WTO Member countries, North and South, in order to involve all sections of the community that have a stake. The existing informal and ad hoc way in which the WTO manages relations with civil society means that NGOs wishing to learn about or influence international trade policy must turn to their governments. Official NGO consultation mechanisms are costly, so will most likely be undertaken by the countries that can afford them. This exacerbates the chances that the NGOs most likely to make their concerns regarding international trade policy heard are those based in industrialised countries, or with good access to industrialised country decision-makers.

There is currently relatively little parliamentary scrutiny of WTO matters, including the preparation of negotiating positions. Regular debates on the WTO in national parliaments would help to increase the accountability of international trade policy-making. In addition, civil society organisations working on trade-related subjects have a responsibility to increase public awareness of the relevance of international trade policy to their constituencies, thereby raising the level of national debate.

At the international level, there is a strong case for the WTO to reduce restrictions on access to documents, to consider establishing an accreditation scheme for civil society organisations and allowing citizens’ groups with a relevant interest or expertise to be able to submit evidence to dispute settlement panels, and to increase the level of informal dialogue with civil society, for example, through organising more symposia. It should be noted that financial support is needed to assist developing country civil society groups to participate in such events and to follow the WTO process more generally.

The Seattle talks re-emphasised tensions between WTO rules and other international conventions, treaties and commitments on human rights, poverty reduction and the environment. This section aims to identify a number of key questions relating to the role of the WTO within the wider framework of global governance, which must be addressed by the international community:

• What changes are required to ensure that WTO negotiations take adequate account of critical global challenges, rather than being driven by a relatively narrow definition of national interests?
• What WTO mechanisms could be established to review the impact of trade policy reform on human development and environmental sustainability objectives, and to use these findings to inform the direction of future WTO negotiations?
• What changes are required to redress the existing imbalance of power between the WTO and international institutions with responsibility for such important objectives as human rights, environmental sustainability and poverty reduction?

As an increasing number of challenges require collective action at the global level, the capacity of our existing institutions of global governance, including the WTO, are coming under increasing scrutiny. The challenges facing the international community today require policy-makers to broaden the concept of ‘national interest’ to induce states to find greater unity in the pursuit of common goals and values. "In the context of many of the challenges facing humanity today, the collective interest is the national interest", notes Kofi Annan, UN Secretary-General.¹³ This is far from the way in which the WTO currently operates where Members adopt a mercantalist approach in pursuing narrow national commercial interests.

While the WTO cannot reduce poverty alone, it has an important role to play alongside other international institutions in contributing to the achievement of the human development targets agreed by world leaders in 1995. These include halving extreme poverty, achieving universal primary education and reducing by two-thirds the number of child deaths by 2015. Although these targets are achievable, they will be missed if current trends continue.¹⁴ Changing this picture will require new relationships between rich and poor countries, including in international trade negotiations. Members need to consider ways of ensuring that the objectives of environmental sustainability and poverty eradication are integrated as guiding principles in all trade policy-making so that the benefits of international trade are distributed more equitably.

The preamble establishing the WTO includes a number of non-trade objectives, such as raising living standards and achieving full employment. However, the WTO’s efforts are currently judged on the basis of reductions in trade barriers and growth in international trade flows, rather than in terms of their contribution towards the economic and human development of poor countries and people.

If it is accepted that the WTO’s institutional objectives and indicators for success should make explicit that trade is a means to an end, rather than an end in itself, systematic mechanisms could be established to assess the broader developmental impact of WTO rules. These findings could then feed back into the trade policy-making process. Expanding the scope of the Trade Policy Review Mechanism (TPRM) is one possible way in which this could be achieved. The TPRM is essentially a WTO audit of a country’s trade regime, which is undertaken by WTO Secretariat staff who visit the county under review in order to examine the impact of a Member’s trade policies and practices on the multilateral trading system. However, the TPRM could be used to increase understanding of the impact of trade policy reform on poverty reduction and environmental sustainability, especially through the involvement of specialised UN agencies and civil society organisations.

The strength of the WTO’s enforcement mechanisms, which empower it to impose trade sanctions, set it apart from most other international organisations. Only the UN Security Council has comparable power. In the latter case trade sanctions can be imposed against a government that transgresses international law, thereby endangering global peace and security. Draconian WTO sanctions can be imposed for much less "serious" offences but paradoxically if they are applied without proper regard for their impacts on fragile economies and already vulnerable people, they could have a profoundly destabilising effect on regional or even global security.

The negative impact of trade sanctions on poor workers or producers, resulting from a dispute in which they had no involvement, may be substantial. There is therefore a strong case for considering the establishment of mechanisms to monitor the poverty impact of any WTO sanctions in order to ensure that vulnerable producers and workers in developing countries do not bear the costs of infringements of WTO rules by third parties.

A key challenge for the international community is to promote effective coordination between international institutions, and particularly to ensure an appropriate balance between WTO rules and other international conventions and treaties, for example on human rights and the environment. Given the strength of the WTO enforcement mechanisms, there is a clear tendency for non-trade priorities to be subjugated to WTO rules.

For much of the 1990s during the UN-sponsored Summits, OECD governments attempted to ring-fence trade from wider scrutiny, and were largely successful in obstructing the inclusion of trade-related issues into the agenda of the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development and the 1995 Summit on Social Development, for example. It is important to consider how to strengthen UN agencies vis-à-vis the WTO, given that their mandates are equally important. Can a more even distribution of the benefits of international trade be achieved by promoting a more pluralistic form of global governance, with a stronger role for specialised UN agencies such as UNCTAD and the ILO?

Another key issue is to define an appropriate remit for the WTO. While the WTO is often criticised for impinging on non-trade issues for which it lacks institutional competency, there are a number of important trade-related issues that the WTO does not even attempt to address, for example, low and unstable commodity prices. The WTO, working with other international institutions, could potentially play a useful role in regulating and seeking solutions to these issues which have a substantial effect on the ability of poor countries and people to benefit from international trade.

Conversely, there are certain policy issues for which it is questionable that they should be covered by WTO rules. For example, it can be argued that the WTO agreement on intellectual property restricts poor countries’ ability to adapt technologies for domestic production and trade, and thus to increase their competitiveness in the fast-growing knowledge-rich sectors of the economy.

The failure of the Seattle talks has brought to the fore the need for WTO institutional reform and a more informed public debate about the role and limitations of the WTO in making an effective contribution to poverty eradication and sustainable development. There are those who doubt whether the WTO should, or is capable of, reform. At a minimum though, the WTO’s crisis of confidence and legitimacy is now widely acknowledged and a debate has begun on the underlying issues.

As the Director-General of UNCTAD noted in his address in Seattle, "For any international organisation, legitimacy depends on three main components: universal membership, participatory and effective decision-making, and fair sharing in the benefits of the system." To this can be added consensus on the objectives of the organisation and the means of pursuing those ends. The aims of this paper are modest: to make a useful contribution to the debate and to provide a framework for discussion.

1 The GATT was established in 1948 as a provisional system for international trade negotiations. It was subsumed into the WTO as a trade agreement in 1995.

2 The MFN principle prohibits discrimination among Member countries. No Member is to give special trading advantages to, or discriminate against, another; all are to be treated equally ‘favourably’.

3 This group includes the US, Japan, Switzerland, New Zealand, Canada, and Australia.

4 The Agreement establishing the Dispute Settlement System.

5 It should be noted that although the banana dispute was brought against the EU, the real losers have been small banana-producers in the Caribbean, whose livelihoods are threatened as a result of changes in the EU banana import regime required by the WTO ruling.

6 Procedures for the Review of the Dispute Settlement Understanding. WT/DSB/W/74 26 February 1998, p.1.

7 ICTSD (1999), Accreditation Schemes and Other Arrangements for Public Participation in International Fora, Geneva.

8 Cameron, J., Z. Makuch, and H. Ward (1995), Sustainable Development and Integrated Dispute Settlement in GATT 1994, WWF International Discussion Paper, cited in WWF (1999), Reform of the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Mechanism for Sustainable Development, WWF International Discussion Paper.

9 Speech to the Development Committee of the European Parliament by Peter Gakunu, Head of the Trade and Customs Cooperation Division of the Brussels-based ACP Secretariat, 18 February 2000.

10 See ICTSD (1999) for a comprehensive overview of NGO accreditation schemes in other international organisations.

11 Stiglitz, J (1999), On Liberty, the Right to Know, and Public Discourse: The Role of Transparency in Public Life, Oxford Amnesty Lecture, January.

12 The friend of the court, or amicus curiae brief enables non-parties to a dispute to submit relevant factual and legal arguments to a court when matters of significant public interest are at stake. NGOs have used these pleadings, for example, within the United States and South African court systems, and at the regional and international level in human rights disputes.

13 Kofi Annan (1999), ‘Two concepts of sovereignty’, The Economist, pp. 81-82, September 18^th.

14 World Bank (1999), Poverty Trends and Voices of the Poor, Washington.