TWN
Info Service on WTO and Trade Issues (Feb16/06)
24 February 2016
Third World Network
WTO Members must reassert development mandate, say CSOs
Published in SUNS #8187 dated 24 February 2016
Geneva, 23 Feb (Kanaga Raja) -- A host of civil society organisations
including trade unions, environmentalists, farmers, and public interest
groups has called on WTO Members to use the opportunity of the General
Council meeting on Wednesday to reassert, and accept, the importance
of the development mandate in future WTO negotiations.
In a letter addressed to the WTO Members, the groups expect that developing
countries will again strongly reassert their understanding of the
Nairobi Ministerial Declaration at the General Council meeting and
to uphold the development mandate - and not so-called "new issues"-
as the core agenda of any future negotiations within the WTO.
"We call on developed country members and others pushing the
‘new issues' agenda to put aside specious claims that ‘Doha did not
deliver' and instead, to actually deliver on the promises included
in the development mandate," they said.
The CSO letter was signed by international organisations such as the
ACP Civil Society Forum, ActionAid International, Friends of the Earth
International, LDC Watch and the Pacific Network on Globalization,
as well as a number of national organisations and networks.
In their letter, the CSOs said that they have persistently challenged
the existing rules of the WTO that are incompatible with people-centered
development.
"Many of us were in Nairobi seeking to forestall efforts by some
developed countries to abandon the so-called ‘Doha development agenda'
to be able to replace it with new negotiations of a set of ‘new issues',
that would impact deeply on domestic economies and constrain national
policy space required for development and the public interest."
For civil society as well as according to the demands of the majority
of the membership, the WTO membership had agreed to strengthening
Special and Differential Treatment for all developing countries.
According to the letter, this includes removing WTO obstacles to food
security, including through removing WTO obstacles to public stockholding
for food security and developing a concrete and workable Special Safeguard
Mechanism.
"In contrast, the abandonment of the development mandate would
lock out the potential to fulfill this mandate in the future, thus
locking the world further into the existing inequalities and imbalances
forever."
In terms of process, the CSOs said they were shocked to witness how
the majority of WTO members were kept out of the discussions on core
elements of the agriculture negotiations and the contentious issues
under the Ministerial Declaration.
"The lack of transparency, participation and inclusiveness in
the Nairobi Ministerial Conference contradicts the WTO's claim to
be a member-driven and rules-based institution and to operate by consensus,"
they said.
Developed countries have been quick to promote their interpretation
of the Nairobi Ministerial Declaration through the media, proclaiming
the "death of Doha" and the "birth of new WTO"
and pointing to the potential for "new approaches" and "new
issues" at the WTO.
"As global observers to the WTO negotiations, we disagree with
this assessment. We have heard developing countries repeatedly and
continuously reiterating their position calling for the reaffirmation
of the Doha Mandate, both throughout the process in Geneva and in
the Nairobi Ministerial Conference, as well as opposing the expansion
of the WTO's agenda without first addressing its worst flaws and asymmetries."
The CSOs underlined that a handful of WTO Members succeeded in inserting
a reference to "other issues for negotiations" under the
Ministerial Declaration.
They noted that at the World Economic Forum, a few countries set forth
a list of some of these issues.
This list includes issues that many developing countries, and civil
society around the world, have rejected to negotiate in the WTO as
well as in bilateral or plurilateral so-called free trade agreements
(FTAs).
"It is outrageous to think of allowing such ejected topics back
into the WTO," they said.
It is important to underline that under Article III. 2 of the Agreement
Establishing the WTO, "further negotiations" may take place
among Members "concerning their multilateral trade relations."
Much of this long list of "new issues" proposed by a few
members such as investment would not fall within the boundaries of
this mandate, the CSO letter emphasised. +
