south-north development monitor SUNS [Email Edition]

SUNS #4430, Thursday 6 May 1999

contents

Trade: From rule-based to rule-less system? (Chakravarthi Raghavan, Geneva)

Japan: Tokyo spins a friendlier image in Obuchi's U.S. visit (IPS, Tokyo)

Trade: African leaders meet to chart out new strategies (IPS, Nairobi)

Latin America: ECLAC predicts mild social impact from crisis (IPS, Santiago)

India: Appropriate technology aids building projects (IPS, Thiruvananthapuram)

Excerpts from some selected articles:

Trade: From rule-based to rule-less system?

Geneva, 5 May (Chakravarthi Raghavan) -- After three sittings of its General Council (GC), a week of manipulations and manoeuvres over the selection of the next Director-General and no consensus, the World Trade Organization Tuesday night was on the verge of being seen as an institution without rules, and well on its way to losing its legitimacy.

If the aim of the United States, the prime mover behind the candidacy of New Zealand's Michael Moore, had been to make it impossible to decide on Moore by consensus, or enable him to function if elected, and jeopardise the 3rd Ministerial meeting at Seattle, the US Amb. Rita Hayes and her delegation, and Chairman Amb. Ali Mchumo of Tanzania and "facilitator" Amb. William Rossier of Switzerland could not have gone about the job better.

The Council meeting adjourned Tuesday night with members in an angry mood, and not very much cooling Wednesday morning, though there were some hints that Mchumo might try to ease matters at the next meeting.

The Council is expected to reconvene late Wednesday or Thursday morning, according to supporters of Dr. Supachai, who had an open-ended consultation (of some 30-40 delegations) with Mchumo and Rossier. At the Tuesday evening sitting the selection process and the work of the Council, appeared to have been made more complicated, with some real danger of the Chair's role becoming an issue, when he announced that he had eliminated one of the two candidates, Thai Dy. Prime Minister Supachai Panitchpakdi, and that "Supachai is no longer in the race."

With a large number of delegations challenging from the floor the Chair's right to refuse to recognize a validly tabled proposal from Kenya for placing his appointment to the Council for consensus, and insisting that the Chair, facilitator or secretariat had no right to "object" to any candidate, and that it was for members to object, it seemed at one stage that the issue was no longer one of Moore or Supachai, but of how the system functions and the role of the Chair.

[c] SUNS - All rights reserved. May not be reproduced, reprinted or posted to any system or service without specific permission from SUNS. This limitation includes incorporation into a database, distribution via Usenet News, bulletin board systems, mailing lists, print media or broadcast. For information about reproduction or multi-user subscriptions please contact <suns@igc.org>

SouthsideTWNCAPPAN