Archive - Nov 2006 - Article

The World Bank has claimed at an agriculture meeting of the WTO that the use of "special products" and "special safeguard mechanism" which had been proposed by many developing countries in the Doha negotiations could undermine food supply to the world's poor.

Police removed five protesters who interrupted World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General Pascal Lamy with cries of “the world is not for sale” and “you glorify feudalism” when he spoke at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum yesterday about the WTO and accountability.

Members of the World Trade Organization negotiating the terms of Vietnam's membership concluded their talks on Thursday 26 October by accepting the accession documents that spell out Vietnam's commitments and rights.

Many developing countries have opposed another attempt by the European Union and other developed countries to have the TRIPS Council of the WTO to deal with enforcement of intellectual property rights.

The proposed deals of the Doha Round negotiations to date would cause developing countries generally to incur much more costs than the negligible benefits that would go to a few, and the present pause in the negotiations should be welcomed so that a rethinking of the negotiations can be undertaken.

The Group of 33 in the WTO has complained to World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz about a paper on Special Products (SPs) produced by the Bank which the Group says contains a serious misrepresentation of the purpose and effects of SPs.