The eighth ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organisation is slated to be held in Geneva between December 15 and 17 and, naturally, all eyes are turned towards it. This, ironically, is generating some concern because, as things stand now, the world is bound to know by the end of the year that, once again, the Geneva-based WTO has failed to provide leadership and guidance to the movement to liberalise international trade – in accordance with the Doha Declaration which was signed and sealed in November 2001.

The situation for the ministerial is so desperate that, while the agenda for the meeting is supposed to be finalised by this week, officials in Geneva are at sixes and sevens about what to put into the as-yet empty basket. Along with the agenda, the usual procedure for such ministerials dictates that, by this time, some progress is also made with the outline of the outcome of the meeting in the shape of whatever document is agreed to be released at the end of the event. Not much appears to have moved in this sphere either, there being no consensus as yet on whether there should be a formal declaration, or a statement, or just a summary of developments.

No meeting of minds

The short question to ask is: why is the WTO December ministerial in this pitiable state? The equally short answer is: because there is no meeting of minds between the rich and the poor of the world – particularly the former – on how much to concede to the poor so that international trade (and, consequently, the world economy) can be healthier and more efficient in the coming years. More critical is the point that the Doha Declaration, which governs the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations, has focussed unequivocally on a specific Development Agenda, which accords a special place to the developing economies (including the least developing countries). This means that any inability to clinch the Doha Round successfully should be directly attributed to the inability or unwillingness of the haves to accord a special place to the trade and economic problems of the have-nots, which is not only just unfortunate but also grossly regressive.

It is pointless to go into the details of the state of unpreparedness of the WTO membership for the December ministerial. What is more significant is that the WTO chief, Mr Pascal Lamy, has been forced to acknowledge that the only way out now appears to be to have recourse to Paragraph 47 of the Doha Declaration, which lays down that even though “the conduct, conclusion and entry into force of the outcome of the negotiations shall be treated as parts of a single undertaking”, agreements “reached at an early stage may be implemented on a provisional or a definitive basis”, the “early agreements (being) taken into account in assessing the overall balance of the negotiations”.

Soap opera

The enveloping tragedy of the entire exercise is that even if Mr Lamy's roadsign is adopted, there is still little idea of what the subjects are going to be on which a last-ditch effort will be made to hammer out agreements. The situation is so difficult that even LDCs are now finding themselves being shunted out of the general sphere of preference in which they have always basked in Geneva deliberations.

Clearly, as far as the Doha Round is concerned, the WTO is fast deteriorating into a soap-opera with its credibility sinking to unfathomable depths. This does not augur well for healthy international trade liberalisation in the years ahead.

Related Topics