Author (Person) | Bower, Helen | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Publisher | ProQuest Information and Learning | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Series Title | In Focus | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Series Details | 23.11.01 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Publication Date | 23/11/2001 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Content Type | News, Overview, Topic Guide | In Focus | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Doha, Qatar played host to a 'make or break' Fourth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) from the 9th until the 13th November 2001 which brought together representatives from over 140 countries. The challenge for the representatives was to agree on an agenda for a new round of trade talks after failure at the Third Ministerial Conference in Seattle in 1999. The key issues up for discussion were:
The European Union, which strongly supports the WTO, also wanted to add other items to the agenda for the new round. These included matters such as competition policy and public procurement, investment, anti-corruption measures, labour standards and a wide range of environmental concerns. However, in order to receive support from developing countries on these issues it was recognised that the EU would have to alter its stance on agriculture. After much controversy and lengthy debate, the WTO members eventually agreed on a final Ministerial Declaration which will allow for the launch of a new round of global trade talks. Background
The World Trade Organisation is a global international organisation which deals with the rules of trade between nations. It was set up in 1995 as a successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. The organisation is based in Geneva, Switzerland and in July 2001 its membership totalled 142 countries, accounting for 90% of world trade. The WTO's overriding objective is 'to help trade flow smoothly, freely, fairly and predictably'. Its main functions are:
It has concluded agreements on: customs tariffs; agriculture; textiles; services; intellectual property; anti-dumping; subsidies; emergency safeguards; technical and bureaucratic barriers. Two agreements on civil aircraft and government purchases remain signed by only some WTO members and so these are know as plurilaterals. The WTO also conducts regular reviews of individual countries' trade policies. The WTO held its Third Ministerial in Seattle from 30 November to 3 December 1999. The key objective at Seattle was to launch a new round of trade talks, to be known as 'The Millennium Round'. However, Ministers failed to reach agreement on an agenda for the new round and the meeting was suspended. For a more detailed account of the Seattle meeting and a set of useful links look at: European Sources Online: In Focus: In January 2000, preparation began for the next Ministerial Conference. Director-General Mike Moore and 1999 General Council Chairman Ali Mchumo unveiled a four point plan of confidence building measures designed to get the organisation back on its feet and functioning again after the setbacks at Seattle. As negotiations proceeded, members began preparing in early 2001 for the WTO's 4th Ministerial Conference. The organisation is mandated by the terms of the Marrakesh Agreement to hold its conference every two years. In February 2001 it was agreed to hold the Fourth WTO Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar from 9th to 13th November 2001.
All the Member States of the European Union belong to the WTO, indeed several of them were among the founder-members of GATT. Under Article 113 of the Treaty of Rome the European Commission is able to represent the Member States in international trade negotiations, and has done so in GATT since the Kennedy Round began in 1963. The European Commission operates on the basis of a mandate laid down by the Council of Ministers and in consultation with the Article 113 Committee (following the renumbering of the treaties in the Treaty of Amsterdam this committee is now known as the Article 133 Committee). At the Fourth WTO Ministerial Conference the European Union was represented by a delegation of some 500 representatives, led by Franz Fischler, European Commissioner for Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Development and Pascal Lamy, the European Commissioner for Trade. The negotiating mandate for the EU delegation at Doha was prepared beforehand in the Council of European Union. The General Affairs Council, meeting on 29 October 2001, reaffirmed some of the EU's key objectives for the Doha Conference including the launch of a new round of trade talks, the importance of the developing countries and the flexibility of the TRIPs agreement. Issues on the Doha agenda In order to launch a new round of trade talks, several issues needed to be discussed and agreed on at Doha. The five key issues concerned agriculture, TRIPs, implementation, the environment, services, investment and competition policy.
At the Doha Conference there were two aspects to the debates on agriculture: one of the most important and indeed most controversial issues concerned further liberalisation in agricultural trade; and the other concerned the non-trade aspects of agriculture such as food safety. In relation to the further liberalisation of agriculture the EU was put under strong pressure from other WTO members at the Doha Conference who called for the phasing out of farm subsidies in a new round of global trade talks. This pressure came particularly from the Cairns Group and other developing countries. Such proposals conflict with the European Union's Franz Fischler, the European Commissioner negotiating on behalf of the European Union in the area of agriculture at the WTO, maintained in a speech at the EU's opening press conference in Doha that the EU would be constructive and was prepared to,
He also pointed out that the EU would be prepared to support the phasing out of export subsidies but only on the basis that such a discipline was applied to all forms of export subsidisation. He cited the example of the outcome in the Uruguay Round where the EU reduced its restitutions to 12% of the EU's farm budget yet the US export credits, the abuse of food aid and price setting via state trading enterprises all escaped from any form of discipline. However, Fischler struggled to maintain this flexible stance in reality during the conference, as France refused to agree to the phasing out of the EU farm subsidy system. The opposition from the French threatened the collapse of the whole agreement, as the French Trade Minister Francois Huewart pointed out, calling it 'a sort of deal-broker point'. But the president of France main's farmer's lobbying group, Jean-Michel Lemetayeur, reportedly said he, 'would rather the talks collapsed than the EU signed up to a bad deal'. In the end, France accepted the deal on agriculture for a number of reasons. Firstly, the wording of the final text of the Ministerial Declaration (paragraph 13-14) was altered so that it explicitly stated that the new negotiations were aimed at 'the reductions of, with a view to phasing out, all forms of export subsidies'. Secondly, ministers agreed to grant the European Union a waiver from its non-discrimination obligations, in order to enable it give preferential tariff concessions to the Cotonou agreement. Furthermore, by conceding on the liberalisation of agricultural trade the EU was able to include two of its key issues concerning the environment and sustainable development, and investment and competition policy on the agenda for a new round of world trade talks. Despite the wording of the final text, other WTO members are clearly keen to keep the emphasis on the phasing out of subsdies. In its ministerial statement on the conclusion of the Doha conference, the Cairns Group welcomed the adoption of the WTO Ministerial Declaration saying,
Less controversy surrounded the other aspect of agriculture, its non-trade concerns, which the EU wanted to be put on the negotiating agenda. In the final declaration WTO members agreed to take into account the non-trade concerns in the negotiations provided for under the Agreement on Agriculture. More information on the EU's position on agriculture and the WTO can be found on the European Commission's DG for agriculture website on a special page on:
The other key controversial issue concerned trade in intellectual property rights (TRIPs). The most controversial aspect of TRIPs at the conference concerned the demands of the developing countries that WTO intellectual property rights on pharmaceuticals and patents should not prevent them from accessing essential medical supplies. The issue has been highlighted because of the huge AIDS epidemic in sub-saharan Africa. Twenty five million people are estimated to have the HIV virus yet only around 25,000 actually receive the drugs that have revolutionised treatment in the west. Developing countries claim that the lack of treatment is due to the drug companies charging prices for AIDS medicines which put them out of the reach of most Africans. At the Doha conference, members agreed to allow countries to seek a waiver on public health grounds from strict WTO rules which guarantee drug patents for 20 years. While this was clearly a positive step for developing countries and the deal received much positive coverage in the world press some NGO development organisations were less enthusiastic. The World Development Movement pointed out that the Final Declaration (paragraphs 17-19) on TRIPs confirms the existing agreement and it was only necessary to seek confirmation because of 'attacks by the US on the rights of countries to prioritise affordable treatment for health emergencies such as HIV/AIDS'. Notably it was the US who, in recent weeks, threatened to override the patent deal on the anti-anthrax drug, Cipro, even though less than ten people have died from the disease. Other decisions on the trade in intellectual property rights at the Doha Conference concerned the negotiation of a multilateral system of notification and registration of geograhpical indications for products other than wines and spirits. The EU welcomed this move as it would offer the ability to protect products such as Italian Parmigiano cheese from being pirated in other WTO-countries.
The issue of implementation also divided the rich from the poor countries. This concerns the commitments decided at the WTO which member countries must then implement. Prior to the Seattle Ministerial meeting, the developing countries had tabled 102 issues which they felt should be given priority. These were either commitments which the richer countries had failed to implement or ones that the developing countries themselves were struggling to implement because they either lacked the resources or because they would have adverse impacts on the countries' development. The problems concerning implementation were driving a gap between the developed and the less developed countries with the former calling for a new round but the developing countries less sure because they were concerned how far their resources could be stretched. In the final text of the Ministerial Declaration (Paragraph 12) WTO members agreed to give high priority to the outstanding implementation issues in the future Work Programme and decided that the relevant WTO bodies would report to the Trade Negotiations Committee by the end of 2002 for appropriate action to be taken. Prior to the Doha conference the European Union had recognised the need for demonstrable progress on implementation issues if the developed countries were going to persuade the less developed to support a new round of trade talks. In its overall assessment of the Doha results, the European Union stated that it felt 'progress had been made and the decisions reached had resolved a number of problems'. In its view,
However, the World Development Movement was not so complimentary on the progress on implementation issues. In its analysis of the final Ministerial Declaration it pointed out that, while further consideration of these issues is included in the Declaration, only minor adjustments have been made to the way current agreements are implemented. Moreover, the commitment to allow quota free and tariff free access to exports from developing countries 'remained an aspiration'. The analysis goes on to say,
One of the EU's main objectives at Doha was to see sustainable development and the environment on the agenda for a new round of negotiations. The EU is playing a leading role in global discussion on the environment and will play a major role in the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development which will be held in Johannesburg. At the WTO conference the EU succeeded in achieving most of its objectives on environment, largely because it conceded in other areas such as agriculture. The final Ministerial Declaration (paragraph 32) calls for increased action in the WTO in favour of sustainable development and the protection of the environment, with WTO members agreeing that one of the overarching goals of the negotiations will be that of sustainable development. The Committee on Trade and Environment (CTE) was also ordered to focus on the effect of environmental measures on market access, the relevant provisions of the TRIPS agreement and the labelling requirements for environmental purposes. The CTE shall present a report on these issues to the Fifth Ministerial Conference. There will also be negotiations on Multilateral Environment Agreements (MEAs) although this was criticised by environmental groups as the wording of the text effectively gives the US a let out clause on agreements they have not signed such as the Kyoto Protocol. Indeed, groups such as Friends of the Earth criticised the Doha decisions on the environment for not going far enough. David Waskow, the Friends of the Earth trade Policy Co-ordinator said,
The two issues of investment and competition policywere also subjects which the EU particularly wanted to be added to the agenda for the new round of trade talks. Their proposals were met with hesitation from the developing countries who already felt that the current issues on the agenda stretched their resources to the limit. The differences in the size of resources of the countries was reflected in the size of the delegations: while the EU sent more than 500 representatives, many developing countries could only send a couple and Haiti had no representative at all. However, by conceding on the liberalisation of agriculture the EU did succeed on getting these issues placed on the agenda for negotiations. Agreement was reached on dates for launching the market access negotiations on services which is expected to bring about considerable market opportunities for EU business. In terms of competition, a landmark decision was reached to set the objective of establishing a multilateral framework on competition policies. The EU believes this will contribute to the more effective application of domestic regimes and be of benefit to consumers all over the world. The Doha Declaration marks another unprecedented step by also establishing a multilateral framework aimed at improving the conditions for Foreign Direct Investment Worldwide. All the elements of the investment framework contained in the Declaration are in line with the EU's own agenda in this area. In both the framework for competition policy and that of investment, the option for developing countries to opt out, an EU proposal, was also included in the Declaration allowing for flexibility in future negotiations. China and Taiwan become WTO members Another historic event at the Doha Conference was the welcoming of China and Taiwan as members of the WTO, bringing almost a quarter of the world's population into the multilateral trading organisation. The move means that the WTO now has membership from 144 countries. China itself is the world's most populous nation and is the fifth largest global trader. From Doha to a New Round After a controversial Fourth WTO Ministerial Conference which had to overrun into a fifth day for agreement to be reached on a Ministerial Declaration, the Doha Conference has enabled a new round of trade talks to be launched by agreeing on what would constitute the work programme of the round. This will be the first round since the eight year Uruguay Round ended in 1994. As such, it has overcome the setbacks at Seattle and has been heralded a success by many. There have been estimates that a new round of trade talks would lead to the creation of $400 billion dollars of new wealth, of which $150 billion would flow into developing countries. Certainly the European Union, which was one of the strongest advocates of the new round, feels its objectives have been achieved. Pascal Lamy, speaking at the closing press conference, said,
President of the European Commission, Romano Prodi also welcomed the move saying,
Several European non-governmental organisations have also praised the results of Doha. UNICE and ESF welcomed the decision to launch a new round, saying,
However, the developing countries have responded with less enthusiasm. They were the main opponents to the launch of a new round and many felt that they were being pushed into signing an agreement because otherwise the WTO would collapse and damage the world economy. A Jamaican delegate, Dr Bernal, reportedly said,
The World Development Movement also criticised the move to launch a new round especially with only a three year work programme. It said,
The Fourth WTO Ministerial Meeting in Doha clearly outlined the differences between the rich and poor countries of the world and highlighted how an organisation which seek to bring countries together can actually create divisions between many countries over a number of issues. The challenge of the new round of trade talks in the third millennium will be to narrow the gaps between the developed and the less developed countries of the world. Further information within European Sources Online:
Further information can be seen in these external links: European Commission
Memos: Speeches:
Council of the European Union: General Affairs Council European Parliament Eurostat: International Organisations World Trade Organisation
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
The Cairns Group:
Non- Governmental Organisations WTOwatch.org
Global Exchange
IISDnet (Website of the International Institute for International Affairs) Friends of the Earth International
Friends of the Earth Europe
World Forum on the WTO, Beirut, 6-8 November 2001 World Development Movement
UNICE
News
Further and subsequent information on the subject of this In Focus can be found by an 'Advanced Search' in European Sources Online by inserting 'World Trade Organisation' in the keyword field. Helen Bower The Fourth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) took place in Doha, Qatar from the 9-13 November 2001. The five key issues on the agenda concerned agriculture, TRIPs, implementation, the environment, services, investment and competition policy |
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Subject Categories | Business and Industry, Politics and International Relations, Trade |