DEVELOPING COUNTRIES LOSE IN DOHA.
As tired delegations left the Doha ministerial after 6 days of hectic, confused and often acrimonious negotiations it was clear to developing countries that the WTO continues to be dictated by the interests of the QUAD countries (EU, US, Japan and Canada).
The reworked draft which emerged in the early hours of 14 November in Doha essentially launches a New Round of trade negotiations- something that developing countries have consistently rejected. Developing countries constitute the bulk of membership of the Trade organisation that purports to work on the consensus principle to create a rules based system for the conduct of multilateral trade. It is deplorable that even after years of concerted lobbying this most priority issue for countries like ours has been virtually ignored by the WTO. On the other hand countries like the EU have bludgeoned their way into gains on virtually every issue on the agenda.
The minimal gains in agriculture and TRIPS are represented by feeble language with the EU mentioning clearly that the outcome of negotiations on removing their subsidies on agriculture will not be prejudged. Contrary to widespread critique on the General agreement on Trade in Services the WTO has decided that the ongoing negotiations that are part of the built in agenda will continue. The UNCHR is in the process of reporting on the human rights implications of trade in services. Developing countries have said that there should be an assessment before they are required to further commit their sectors. Most developing countries do not maintain data on a majority of their services sectors, which makes it impossible for them to make informed commitments. The EU and the US have been demanding that there are further commitments in the GATS and this green signal from the WTO will put further pressure on delegations from the south.
EQUATIONS was part of the coalition of civil society groups in Doha and we were witness to the courage and determination of the developing countries to secure the interests of thousands of their populations who will be profoundly impacted by the deliberations in Doha. We were also witness to the highhanded unethical negotiating practices of the developed countries like the Green Room process, linking aid budgets and trade preferences to the trade positions of developing countries, and targeting individual developing country negotiators. Countries like India initially held a high moral ground but caved into the intense pressure exerted by the troika of the US, EU and the WTO's Director General Mike Moore. It is tragic that a sanction to a new round was given while many developing countries are still recovering from the wide-ranging impacts of the Uruguay round.
The Doha ministerial holds nothing for the developing countries. Along with our civil society partners from across the globe we reaffirm our commitment to a vision for a just and equitable trading order.
In solidarity
THE GATS PROGRAMME
EQUATIONS
198, 2ND CROSS, CHURCH ROAD,
NEW TIPPASANDRA
BANGALORE - INDIA
Below is the 15 November 2001 press release on the WTO declaration by the
WTO WIRODHI BHARATIYA JAN ABHIYAN (Indian People's Campaign against WTO)
WTO WIRODHI BHARATIYA JAN ABHIYAN
(Indian People's Campaign against WTO)
- The Doha ministerial meeting has concluded . The results are before us to see. When we met PM on 30th October and presented him a memorandum containing our views and suggestions with a view to fully safeguarding the national interests in the negotiations, he assured that GOI WOULD NOT SUCCUMB to the pressures of developed countries and multinationals. Unfortunately, the outcome of Doha makes that promise meaningless.
- Although the ministerial declaration calls it a Work Programme and not a New Round of negotiations, it amounts to launching of a new round of negotiations under WTO. The negotiating mandates on different subjects have been elaborated. The traditional mechanism that goes with the commencement of a New Round viz. the establishment of a "Trade Negotiations Committee" to supervise and direct the process of negotiations has been announced. In the true style of New Round, the entire negotiations will be treated as a" single undertaking".
- The bulk of "implementation" issues whose satisfactory solution, our country, among other developing countries, had insisted upon as a pre-condition for any new negotiations , have been incorporated as part of the new negotiations. By all accounts, there has been no worthwhile commitment on the part of developed countries on further liberalization of access for developing countries' exports of textiles products. The issue of abuse of anti-dumping provisions as neo-protectionist measures has been now made part of new negotiations with little or no flexibility for reopening basic elements of the existing discipline and instruments currently in use by USA.
- As far as the New Issues are concerned, there is an explicit commitment that negotiations will start after two years on for" trade facilitation" on some specific articles of GATT 1994.
On the issues of "Investment" and "Competition policy" and "Government Procurement", three most important new issues, (which ,GOI was repeatedly asserting , would be opposed ) have been squarely put in the work programme. The mandates in respect of these three issues start with a phrase: "recognizing the case for a multilateral framework". This amounts to a-priori decision on elaborating a multilateral discipline. While the formal decision on modalities of negotiations on these issues has been postponed to the next ministerial meeting i.e. giving a reprieve of two more years, no doubt whatsoever has been left that under the apparently innocuous title of "further work" of the respective " Working Groups" , virtual negotiations would proceed apace forthwith. The working group on investment will focus on " scope and definition; transparency; non-discrimination; modalities of pre-establishment commitments; development provisions; exceptions and balance of payments safeguards; consultations and settlement of disputes between members.". The working group on competition policy will focus on "core principles; transparency; non-discrimination and procedural fairness; provisions for hard-core cartels; progressive reinforcement of competitive institutions in developing countries." If these elements are elaborated in the next two years , all that will remain to be done at the next ministerial meeting is to formally adopt the multilateral agreements on these two issues, incorporating these provisions !
The only fig -leaf that was obtained by those who tried unsuccessfully to resist this process of launching the New Round with New Issues , consists of "an understanding" from the Conference Chair that would enable each member to use the negotiations on modalities to prevent any negotiations until the member is prepared to join a consensus for negotiations on all the four new issues. What legal and practical value such an understanding has remains to be seen. If the members could not resist the virtual launch of negotiations ab initio on these issues at Doha, what hope is there that they would succeed later when the negotiations would have already gained momentum and the members would be busy protecting their individual interests in the light of the specific elements of the agreement that would have emerged by then?
On the other new issue of "core labour standards", i.e. the celebrated "social clause", the text does not contain the wording that ILO is the appropriate forum for a substantive dialogue on labour rights and thus implies that WTO could bring up the issue later.
On electronic commerce, the zero duty commitment that USA had extracted earlier from the rest of the countries, has been extended until the next ministerial meeting.
- On the question of "reviewing" the agreements like TRIPs and "Understanding on Dispute Settlement" so as to redress the imbalances and inequities that have been imposed by the former on developing countries and to do away with the coercive, undemocratic and unaccountable features that characterize the latter , hardly anything has been accomplished. The much publicized declaration on TRIPs and Public Health serves a very limited purpose; in the words of one commentator " it could (and it is no more than could ) enable developing countries to take measures to protect public health and "promote" ( not assure) access to medicines for all." The wider issue of TRIPs constricting the development and dissemination of technology in developing countries and strengthening the hold of private monopolies in knowledge and technology in general, at the cost of public welfare and development, has remained untouched.
- In the area of on-going negotiations on "Agriculture" and "Services", the position is as follows. In "Agriculture", all that is there is the willingness "to take into account" the "development needs, including food security and rural development". The whole perspective of negotiations will continue to be informed mainly by trade concerns i.e. removing the so-called trade distortions. There is no recognition that for a country like ours that perspective is inappropriate and harmful. There is not even a hint that India will insist on retaining her right to impose quantitative restrictions on imports of agricultural products, without any qualifications and without prior consultations. In other words, GOI would continue to rely on the old and oft- repeated weak dispensation of "differential treatment to developing countries" in terms of tariffs and subsidies and even that would be subject to the broad negotiating objective of substantial improvements in market access for agriculture exporting countries.
In regard to "Services", there is a reaffirmation of the right of members " to regulate, and to introduce new regulations on the supply of services" and of the articles in GATS that are in favour of developing countries. But there is no departure from the very narrow approach regarding movement of labour. Moreover, no cognizance has been taken of the far-reaching issue raised by the UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights about the fundamental importance of the delivery of basic services, particularly health and education, as a means of promoting human rights , and the likely adverse implications of a market-oriented and "liberalizing" approach in respect of such services on the promotion of human rights.
- All in all, brave posturing of GOI notwithstanding, what has finally happened at Doha is what we apprehended in our memorandum to PM viz. capitulation to the pressures of developed countries and their multinationals. Whatever name they may give it, the product of Doha reinforces the process of encroachment on our economic sovereignty.
From all accounts, the Doha process constituted one more chapter in the murky annals of undemocratic, non-transparent and non-participative functioning of WTO. GOI has meekly surrendered to the armtwisting and trickery of the developed countries and compromised national sovereignty.
We reiterate our demand in our memorandum to PM for a White Paper. We also repeat our demand that no agreement in WTO be signed without prior and explicit approval of Parliament and the State Leglislatures, as necessary.
The outcome of Doha will be challenged by the people of India.
We reaffirm our resolve to continue and intensify our struggle against the process of globalization, marketization and recolonization spearheaded by WTO and furthered by the GOI.
Results from Doha
Global Action against WTO
AGP