NGOs urge Lamy to cancel end-April WTO mini-Ministerial

A group of 125 civil society organizations, in a letter sent Tuesday to WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy, has called for the cancellation of a mini-Ministerial reportedly involving only about 30 WTO Members which Lamy had planned for end April and early May in Geneva.

In their letter, the 125 civil society groups from some 40 countries criticized what they called the WTO Secretariat's instigation of 'invitation-only' meetings, from which most WTO Members will be excluded, to attempt to force agreement on aspects of a Doha Round deal that have been opposed by a majority of the Members.

The groups called on Lamy, as the WTO Director-General and Chair of the Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC), to cancel the 'ad hoc exclusive' Ministerial-level gathering and ensure that all WTO Members are fully involved in any negotiations regarding the Doha Round.

Among the signatories to the letter are ActionAid International; ATTAC; Berne Declaration; Brazilian Network for the Integration of the Peoples; Consumers Association of Penang, Malaysia; Corporate Europe Observatory; Friends of the Earth (Australia, Germany, Malaysia and the US); Focus on the Global South; Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy; Oxfam International; Public Citizen; Public Services International; Southern and Eastern African Trade Information and Negotiations Institute (SEATINI); Third World Network; and War on Want.

The letter by the civil society groups to Lamy comes in the same week as negotiations are being held at the WTO on both agriculture and non agriculture market access (NAMA).

The Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration set 30 April as the deadline for achieving modalities in both agriculture and NAMA.

At a 'Green Room' meeting of several WTO Ambassadors some two weeks ago, Lamy reportedly indicated that he intended to convene a meeting of some 30 Ministers in Geneva during the period of 29 April to 5 May, possibly to try and reach agreement on some key modalities in agriculture and NAMA.

In their letter to Lamy, the civil society groups expressed deep concern over his call for some Ministers to meet in Geneva end April and early May, and opposed such a mini-Ministerial meeting that could lead to critical decisions being made by only a handful of Ministers.

They pointed out that it was now too late for the majority of Ministers to make their way to Geneva, especially when it remains unclear what the agenda of the meeting will be, and therefore unclear if it will be worth the Ministers' scarce financial resources and time.

The groups also noted that Lamy's proposal at a recent TNC meeting that 'the establishment of modalities as foreseen by the Hong Kong Declaration will require some sort of Ministerial involvement during the last week of April, with a safety net beginning of May' contradicts his previously stated commitment to a bottom-up approach to the negotiations.

Any negotiations or decision-making process that happens at the end of April or at any time should be all-inclusive, transparent, and with the full participation of all members, as per the WTO mandate, the group's letter stressed.

It also said that the current situation adds to the mounting concerns shared by civil society and many developing-country officials: that exclusive meetings of certain countries to further negotiations in the WTO have become the main negotiating arena for the Doha Round.

The letter cited these exclusive meetings as including the recent WTO Senior Officials' meeting in Geneva on 7-9 March, the mini-Ministerial meeting in London on 10-11 March, and the recent micro-Ministerial in Rio on March 31-April 1, which Lamy attended.

The civil society groups said that the countries that are being excluded from these 'undemocratic and non-inclusive decision-making processes' are the majority of the WTO's member countries, including the LDCs, the ACP Group, and the African Group.

These are the same countries which now face a Doha Round conclusion that, if implemented, would harm the majority of their populations, as confirmed by recent Carnegie, World Bank, and other studies, because of the manner in which the negotiations process has been dominated by the interests of the rich and powerful countries which have forced development issues off the agenda.

The letter added that if Lamy's call for Ministerial involvement is not to be seen as a willful continuation of this undemocratic, top-down approach, then it is imperative that every member has equal access to the decision-making processes of the Doha Round.

In this regard, the groups demanded that the entire membership of the WTO be invited to be involved in all processes and all meetings with regards to future WTO negotiations. The presence of some Ministers must not become a pretext for exclusive Green Room meetings where decisions are made without the presence of all WTO members.

They also reminded Lamy that Articles 48 and 49 of the Doha Ministerial Declaration make abundantly clear that the Director-General, above all, should be committed to ensure that the negotiations are open to all members of the WTO and that they should be conducted in such a manner that facilitates the effective participation of all in order to achieve benefits for all members and an overall balance in the outcome of the negotiations.

The groups said that this mandate however has been repeatedly violated over the course of the negotiations.

They also voiced serious concerns that Lamy's proposed process is likely to be a re-creation of the procedurally flawed situation that produced the July package in 2004, where only a select circle of Ministers were present at a mini-Ministerial in Geneva, which became the main decision-making and negotiating forum. Decisions were made without the full participation of the entire membership that were as critical as those of a formal Ministerial Conference.

The civil society groups concluded by seeking Lamy's assurance that honest, democratic and inclusive processes, not the interests of the powerful few or looming time-lines, will determine the process of WTO negotiations.