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TWN
Info Service on WTO and Trade Issues (Sept21/23) Geneva, 24 Sep (TWN) – The United States has circulated a concept paper on “WTO response to the pandemic: disaster preparedness and resiliency action plan” that appears to put forward trade liberalization, including market access in goods and services, and work on trade facilitation, investment, transparency and regulatory issues as the way forward to address the worsening COVID-19 pandemic. The three-page restricted document (Job/GC/270) circulated on 20 September is presented as a contribution to the “Walker process” to craft the WTO’s response to the pandemic. Ambassador David Walker from New Zealand was appointed earlier in June as the facilitator to oversee the “horizontal and multilateral process” for finalizing the trade body’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic (See: Cautious welcome for Walker as facilitator on WTO Covid-19 response, SUNS #9373 dated 24 June 2021). The US proposes a post-MC12 (the WTO’s 12th ministerial conference beginning in Geneva on 30 November) Action Plan with key pillars that include “issues related to Trade in Goods (Market Access, Trade Facilitation, Technical Barriers to Trade, and Regulatory Cooperation); Services and Investment; Transparency including the Trade Policy Review Body; and WTO engagement with relevant international organizations and the private sector”. The US also proposes that “the General Council … would establish a Disaster Preparedness and Resiliency Action Plan Coordinating Body, chaired by an ambassador designated by the Chair of the General Council to oversee implementation of the plan”. The paper suggests that WTO Member States issue a ministerial decision to this effect at MC12. During the informal meeting convened by Ambassador Walker on 1 September, the attempts to include the issues of “export restrictions, trade facilitation, regulatory coherence, cooperation and tariffs” as part of the WTO’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, was opposed by some developing countries. India was reported to have called on the Ottawa Group members to stop pushing the narratl’ve for the so-called trade-facilitating measures, including the ban on export restrictions, as part of the WTO’s response to the pandemic. It said in that meeting that members need policy space during the pandemic to respond effectively to the evolving situation. South Africa was also reported to voice its concern about including extraneous issues in the WTO’s response to the pandemic, suggesting that the core issues concerning intellectual property rights must be addressed without delay. The “Action Plan” proposed by the United States could in effect morph into a post-MC12 work programme with a dedicated body primarily focused on market access, transparency, regulatory disciplines, services liberalisation, and work on investment, an analyst said. The US proposes work on investment under the WTO while WTO Members had decided by consensus in 2004 that no work on investment would be undertaken during the Doha Round. (Article 1(g) of the July 2004 Package at: https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dda_e/draft_text_gc_dg_31july04_e.htm). Despite this, a joint statement initiative on investment facilitation has been underway since MC11 although its legality under WTO rules is seriously disputed by several WTO Member States (See: WT/GC/W/819, February 2021). At a time when the Doha work programme remains in limbo and uncertain, the US-proposed “Action Plan”, if included in a consensual multilateral ministerial decision, could form a new work programme, sidelining with no meaningful deliverables for issues of concern to developing countries and least-developed countries, including agriculture and strengthening of special and differential treatment. The paper does not address the massive challenge of “vaccine inequity” between the developed and developing countries due to the artificial scarcity created by intellectual property monopolies held by the pharmaceutical industry that continue to cause huge loss of lives, and affect economic recovery, in developing countries. While not specifically mentioned in the US paper, in a fact sheet released in conjunction with President Biden’s Global COVID-19 Summit: Ending the Pandemic and Building Back Better, a virtual summit held on 22 September on the margins of the UN General Assembly, the US restates its support for a COVID -19 TRIPS waiver for vaccines, stressing that “Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures”. Interestingly, the US paper also calls for more transparency and oversight on the WTO Secretariat’s activities “as part of its cooperation, coordination, or engagement with other relevant international organizations and as part of the Third Way dialogue”. The “Third Way” dialogue is an initiative of the WTO Secretariat to engage international organizations and manufacturers to bridge the gap of vaccine inequality. However, thus far, the dialogues have failed to provide a concrete roadmap to expand and diversify manufacturing to promote equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines. AT MC12 The US wants members to work towards a “Ministerial Declaration for MC12 on the WTO Response to the Pandemic” that would include all the discussions held from February 2020 to November 2021. Such a declaration, what the US refers to as “a preamble-type of statement”, would “frame a forward-looking Decision [on a Disaster Preparedness and Resiliency Action Plan for the WTO]”, proposed by the US. The Decision, according to the paper, “would establish a framework for future activity aimed at improving preparedness and resiliency of members to surmount future possible public health or natural disaster events…[and] would establish the political level commitment to initiate a WTO-convened process for action following MC12 to identify issues of relevance to Members and establish modalities” (para 7). A STAGED PROCESS POST-MC12 The US calls for “jump-starting work streams across a wide range of WTO issue areas aimed at examining good practices or possible actions that would contribute to crisis response and disaster preparedness and resiliency” (para. 2). The US says the initial focus on COVID-19 could provide “exchanges of information, options, and lessons learned among WTO members as we continue to move through the different challenges and stages of the current pandemic” (para. 2). Subsequently, the US wants discussions to focus on “addressing supply chain vulnerabilities, promoting greater vaccine production, improving regulatory cooperation and enhancing regulatory compatibility, creating new transparency, accelerating implementation of the Trade Facilitation Agreement and best practices in implementation, evaluating export restraints, opening-up discussions on services and disaster preparedness and resiliency, and discussing new paths for cooperation, coordination, and engagement with other relevant international organizations and the private sector” (para. 3). The US claims that “a dedicated focus on “resilience and preparedness” would provide structure and relevance to the WTO efforts and allow it to examine and discuss those policies that members believe contribute to stronger economic foundations” (para. 3). It argues that the ministerial decision “would establish the General Council as the primary oversight and convening body”. According to the US, the designated oversight body will oversee several activities, including the “Third Way” dialogue (paras. 8 and 9). The US concept paper showcases a business-as-usual approach based on market access and trade liberalization using the COVID-19 pandemic as the basis. As next steps, the US will “turn [the] concept and proposed operations into draft ministerial language” (para. 11).
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