|
||
|
TWN
Info Service on WTO and Trade Issues (Jun23/04) Geneva, 7 Jun (D. Ravi Kanth) — The World Trade Organization’s Director-General Ms Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has informed members that she will convene a Senior Officials (SO) meeting in Geneva on 23-24 October 2023, said people familiar with the development. She proposed that a Vice Minister or Minister of State, or an official at an equivalent level with decision-making authority attend the two-day meeting, which is expected to be a major stocktaking exercise in the run-up to the WTO’s 13th ministerial conference (MC13), to be held in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, in February 2024. Ms Okonjo-Iweala said that the expectation is that senior officials will come prepared to solve specific issues that all members would have mapped out prior to their arrival and inject political will and momentum to ensure a productive MC13. So far, there has been modest progress on the proposed deliverables for MC13 such as on fisheries subsidies, the mandated permanent solution on public stockholding (PSH) programs for food security, the special safeguard mechanism, the extension of the MC12 Ministerial Decision on the TRIPS Agreement to COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics, reform of the dispute settlement system, and more crucially, on WTO reforms, said several negotiators, who asked not to be quoted. In the face of severe opposition from many members to holding such a meeting at the end of July as suggested by the DG earlier, the October meeting is likely to indicate what can be achieved at MC13, said people familiar with the discussions. Earlier, Ms Okonjo-Iweala said that, “Based on Members’ feedback during the sessions with more than 100 delegations, I am suggesting that we hold the Senior Officials Meeting in October.” She went on to say that “if this holds in October, we will be putting back the TNC/HODs [Trade Negotiations Committee/Heads of Delegation] meeting on 20 July.” More importantly, that meeting will be used “for a proper stocktaking and identify issues to be taken up at the Senior Officials Meeting prior to the summer break [in August],” she said. “This will focus the Geneva process from September until senior officials meet in October,” she emphasized. The DG wants senior officials with “decision-making authority” to participate in the October meeting. In a report on her consultations issued as a restricted document (Job/TNC/109) late in the evening of 16 May, seen by the SUNS, the DG had posed three questions to members during her consultations (see SUNS #9784 dated 18 May 2023). TOPICS FOR OCTOBER MEETING In her earlier communication after an informal TNC meeting last month, the DG said: “What I want to push back against is waiting – until the end of July – to set the date.” “Given that the majority seem to prefer autumn – I hope that by today’s meeting, we can converge on a month so that we can give advance notice to senior officials and start laying the foundation for a meaningful Senior Officials Meeting.” The DG indicated that in terms of topics, “a wide variety of ideas were expressed”, while some members categorized areas as: “(i) low-hanging fruits that senior officials can harvest when they meet; (ii) issues that require political guidance and clarity for further focused work until MC13 including issues from MC12; (iii) issues that were not addressed at MC12. The importance of building on our collective successes at MC12 was reiterated.” Ms Okonjo-Iweala said that she heard “one central theme” centering on “the importance of finalizing the LDC Graduation issue.” According to the DG, “Many said that this is an issue that Permanent Representatives should be able to gavel at the General Council.” On development, she said that apart from the G90 Agreement Specific Proposals, it “is an area that we need to deliver by MC13.” As regards the second wave of the Doha fisheries subsidies negotiations, the DG said some members “noted that the type of political guidance would depend on the progress Members would have achieved prior to the Senior Officials Meeting.” If there is a draft negotiations text on fisheries subsidies, the DG said that “some said that the guidance we will need is how to build convergence.” “If there is no text, the focus could be on the principles Members should converge on to arrive at a text and begin text-based negotiations,” the DG said. She suggested that “many members also stressed the importance of ratifying the Fisheries Subsidies Agreement to ensure its entry into force by MC13 and assured me that they were working on their domestic processes.” She congratulated Iceland and the United Arab Emirates for being the latest Members to deposit their respective instruments of acceptance (of the Protocol of the Fisheries Subsidies Agreement). As regards her country of origin, the DG said “I likewise recognize Nigeria’s cabinet has approved the Fisheries Subsidies Agreement and I look forward to receiving their instrument of acceptance soon.” WTO REFORM Commenting on WTO reform, the DG said that “it was suggested that senior officials should be updated on the work on procedural reforms and agree on them as appropriate.” “In fact, delegations said that a set of procedural reforms could be agreed by Ambassadors for implementation,” the DG maintained. As regards substantive reforms, she said: “Some underscored the need to distill ideas brought to the table and put them to the Senior Officials Meeting. Those that have garnered widespread support should be identified and senior officials’ action sought.” She emphasized that “dispute settlement reform remained a key priority.” The DG said without dispute settlement reform, the WTO and its members would not look “credible if by MC13 we had nothing here”. The DG admitted that even if members cannot deliver everything by MC13, they “should at the very least know where we are going on this, and we should have progressed some way on dispute settlement reform, including by converging on broad principles that can guide this work.” She said, “we could ask senior officials to agree on these principles.” On other issues, the DG said that she heard the importance of outcomes in the following areas: 1. Agriculture, in particular, food security in times of crises; 2. The e-commerce work program and moratorium; 3. Pandemic preparedness; 4. TRIPS waiver extension; 5. SPS [Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures]; 6. Small economies; 7. Environment, climate change, and sustainability issues; 8. State intervention and policy space; 9. Level playing field issues, inclusiveness, and accessions. DG’S “SILENCE” ON PSH & SSM Surprisingly, the DG apparently remained silent on the mandated issues in agriculture such as the permanent solution for public stockholding (PSH) programs for food security and the special safeguard mechanism (SSM) for developing countries, both of which have been hanging in limbo since 2015. On the structuring of the Senior Officials’ meeting, the DG said that she “is open to ideas – but it is clear that the modalities of the meeting will depend on the topics to be taken up.” +
|
||
