WTO's general council meeting concludes without outcome; 4 deputy DGs announced

By Martin Khor (TWN), Geneva, 29 July 2005

The WTO General Council meeting ended on 29 July without any of the anticipated results of additional agreements (or 'first approximations') on key aspects of the Doha work programme - agriculture, non-agricultural market access, services and 'development issues.'

This non-outcome signified that the talks have fallen significantly behind the time-tablefor reaching important decisions by the Hong Kong Ministerial meeting in Decemberand ending the negotiations by the end of 2006.

In the absence of substantive negotiations, the highlight of Friday's meeting wasprovided by the announcement that four new Deputy Directors-General had beenappointed.

The announcement was made by the WTO Director-General designate, Pascal Lamy,who made a brief appearance in the morning. Meanwhile, the meeting also saw thepresent Director-General Dr. Supachai Panitchpakdi making his last report, and members gave him a vote of thanks for his work as Director-General for the past threeyears.

The changeover at the top of the WTO secretariat takes place officially on 1September. Sources said that Lamy and his team will start preparatory work on theWTO before that. Supachai will meanwhile assume the post of Secretary General atUNCTAD.

The new Deputy Directors-General are Chile's Ambassador to the WTO, AlejandroJara, Rwanda's Ambassador to the WTO, Valentine Rugwabiza, Secretary of India'sTelecom Regulatory Authority, Harsha Vardhana Singh, and Rufus Yerxa, formerDeputy US Trade Representative.

Harsha Vardhana Singh had previously worked at the WTO Secretariat, while Yerxahas been a Deputy Director-General of the WTO since 2002.

The General Council also confirmed that New Zealand's new ambassador to the WTOCrawford Falconer would replace former New Zealand Ambassador, Tim Groser, asthe chair of the Special Session of the Committee on Agriculture. Falconer'sappointment had been proposed by the General Council chair Ambassador AminaChawahir Mohamed of Kenya on the previous day at an informal heads-of-delegationmeeting.

There was strong presence of Ministers of developed countries at the General Councilmeeting. Present were three ministers from Japan, as well as the US TradeRepresentative Robert Portman and the EC Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson. The Hong Kong Trade Minister was also present.

A meeting between Trade Ministers from the US, the EU, Brazil and India, which hadbeen rumoured to have been planned for this weekend, after the General Councilmeeting, did not materialize. The Indian Trade Minister Kamal Nath was in Genevaon Thursday but left Friday. The Brazilian Minister, Celso Amorim, did not cometo Geneva.

At the end of the meeting, the General Council chair, Ambassador Amina, saidprogress in the talks had been much too slow, that there was no need yet to panic, butmembers needed to do three things if Hong Kong was to succeed: make moreefficient use of time (including avoiding informal mini-Ministerials outside Geneva),improving transparency and participation (taking account of complaints of smallermembers) and 'real political will.'

She indicated that there might be a Ministerial 'stocktaking' meeting in the autumnfor Ministers to assess whether progress is being made, without mentioning whichMinisters would be involved or the venue.

At the start of the meeting, Supachai described the forthcoming Hong KongMinisterial as the place where 'we will start our conclusion of the Doha round.' Lamysaid that his only priority was the conclusion of the Round.

On his appointment of the Deputy Directors-General, Lamy said he had changedprocedure so that the Director-General, not members, took the decision. Of the 80applicants, 15 were interviewed. He added that they were appointed not on the basisof their countries, but their ability to work as a team, as well as the ability to workwith him.

Since the scheduled main agenda item (the state of the Doha negotiations and thereport of the Trade Negotiations Committee chair on this) had already been discussedat the TNC meeting on Thursday, there was only one substantive issue discussed atFriday's meeting - the work programme on special and differential treatment (SDT).

The work programme comprises two parts - discussions on outstandingagreement-specific proposals in the Special Session of the Committee on Trade andDevelopment (CTD) and discussions at other WTO bodies to which other SDTproposals had been referred.

Ambassador Amina referred to the decision in the July 2004 framework, i.e. that theCTD and other bodies would expeditiously complete the review of the SDT proposalsand report to the General Council by July 2005 with clear recommendations for adecision.

It was clear, when reports were presented, that agreements had not been reached onthe SDT proposals, whether at the CTD or other bodies, and the deadline for makinga decision on them was thus missed.

The Chair of the CTD Special Session, Ambassador Faizel Ismail of South Africa,referred to his report to the TNC (TN/CTD/12). According to this, of the outstandingagreement-specific proposals, work had focused on five SDT proposals relating toLDCs. Some issues remain unresolved and consequently and he was not in a positionto make recommendations on any of the proposals.

Some work had also been done on the remaining agreement-specific proposals butthere is a wide divergence of views on most of the proposals.

In response, Cuba said it was concerned that 'we are not moving forward and if wedon't move on development, we will not be able to move on other issues.'

Progress reports on SDT proposals were also given by the Chairs of other WTObodies, including the Special Session of the Committee on Agriculture, and the bodiesdealing with agriculture, services, TRIMs, TRIPS, dispute settlement and rules.

From the reports, it was clear that none of the SDT proposals referred to the bodieshad been resolved.

Responding to the reports, Kenya said that the July 2004 decision on SDT was clear,that there should be clear recommendations presented to this General Council meetingfor a decision. 'We are very far from that,' said Kenya, and many of the issues hadnot even come up for proper discussion.

It added that one of the main problems is that the process itself was not appropriate. The Ministers at Doha had given instructions on SDT in para 44 of the DohaDeclaration, but 'we had been diverted to discussions on 'underlying concerns' insteadof solving the specific issues.'

Kenya asked for a consideration whether the method of work is working, andproposed that the SDT proposals be all brought back to the Committee on Trade andDevelopment (in Special Session) to be dealt with there.

India agreed with Kenya's concerns, as did Bangladesh and Cuba. Bangladesh saidthe SDT issue was very important for LDCs. For a balanced outcome, the issues hadto be settled, or else there could not be progress on other areas.

Kenya said that its suggestion (of moving the SDT issues to the CTD) had receivedsome support and asked that a decision be taken.

The General Council Chair Ambassador Amina said she would consult with membersbefore action is taken.

Dr Supachai, in his capacity as TNC chair, then briefly presented the report (TN/C/5)of the TNC to the General Council.

Venezuela remarked that the report, and other reports by Chairs of various negotiatingprocesses (referring especially to the reports on NAMA and services) could not betaken as the basis for negotiations.

[The previous day, at the TNC meeting, Venezuela had been critical of the reports bythe Chairs on the NAMA and services negotiations.]

The US Trade Representative Bob Portman, who had come to Geneva after theCongressional vote on CAFTA, said that after the approval of CAFTA, the US couldbe more aggressive on trade liberalization, and fulfil a commitment that the US wouldcontinue to take the lead in the WTO process.

On the final agenda item, preparations for the Hong Kong Ministerial, the US andIsrael recorded reservations to the League of Arab States being accorded observerstatus for the Ministerial.

Egypt regretted this, and said that the Arab League had fulfilled all the conditionssince 1999 and yet the issue of its observer status had not been solved till now.

The Council then appointed Ministers as officers for the Ministerial, with Hong Kongas the chair, and Austria, Barbados and Nigeria as vice-chairs.

The General Council Chair Ambassador Amina then made a brief statement, that itwould certainly be fair to say that members aren't where they wanted to be and thatwhile some progress has been made on some issues, far too many remain to beresolved.

Moreover, the progress that has been made has been slow - much too slow.

Saying 'we need not press the panic button', she added that three things would beneeded if members are to succeed in Hong Kong. Firstly, members will have to makethe most efficient, rational use of time. This could mean:

• reducing the work of regular bodies, other than the Dispute Settlement and theTrade Policy Review Bodies, to essential business only - to allow members to focustheir resources on the negotiating bodies.
• avoiding informal Ministerial meetings outside Geneva that conflict with thenegotiating agenda and take negotiators away from Geneva for extended periods.
• ensuring more frequent and active participation of senior officials in the Genevaprocess.
• ensuring that ministers are on call to provide political guidance on a continuousbasis, including by travelling to Geneva to consult each other.
• It may be useful to provide a stocktaking exercise early in the Fall for ministers toassess whether progress is being made.
• More coherent, integrated, centralized and continuous management of thenegotiating process is needed. It is now critical to begin pulling the different threadsof the negotiations together, which have, quite often, run on separate tracks.

Secondly, transparency and effective participation in the negotiations are issues onwhich Ambassador Amina said that she had received countless petitions from thesmaller members.

She said that transparency and effective participation could be achieved in a numberof ways. There can also be more frequent TNC meetings, informal Heads ofDelegation meetings and effective integration and participation of RegionalCoordinators in formal and informal consultations.

Third, and most importantly, there is a need for real political will. Not politicalspeeches, but political action and political courage. Ultimately it will be political willthat will determine whether members succeed in Hong Kong.

She said that the objectives for Hong Kong remain the same - modalities foragriculture and NAMA, a critical mass of high quality offers in services, an agreednegotiating agenda in the area of rules, including trade facilitation and a meaningfulcontribution to development in all aspects of the negotiations.

She also referred to the importance attached by African members, LDCs and the ACPto progress on cotton.

At a joint press briefing later of the Director General Supachai Panitchpakdi andAmbassador Amina, while Supachai felt that the Doha Development Agendanegotiations were not in big trouble, the General Council Chair on the other hand said'we are in trouble' but with political will members would still be able to movebeyond the trouble that they are in today.

(* With inputs from Kanaga Raja.)