Tracking post-Nairobi work of WTO

Asjadul Kibria | Published: February 25, 2016 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

Following Nairobi ministerial conference last December, members and officials of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) are now set to get on with the post-Nairobi work programmes. Roberto Azevedo, Director General of the WTO, convened a meeting of all the members on February 10 to 'discuss the future work' of the organisation. It was actually an informal first meeting of the full membership since the 10th ministerial conference in Nairobi on December 15-19, 2015.Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
POST-NAIROBI AGENDAS: The Nairobi Ministerial Declaration contains, among others, the post-Nairobi agendas too. The last four (31-34) paragraphs outlined the works to be done by the negotiators although there are some ambiguities in the way they got formulated.
Some analysts pointed out that these paragraphs virtually make a path to abandon the Doha Development Agenda or Doha Round of the multilateral trade negotiations keeping a lot of tasks unfinished.Â But others argue that Doha Round will continue.
In the Nairobi meeting, developed countries pushed for conclusion of the Doha negotiation and introduction of new issues. Developing and Least Developed Countries (LDCs), however, opposed the move. Finally, a compromise deal was reached which was actually negotiated by Five Interested Parties (FIPs) -- United States, United Kingdom, Brazil, China and India -- in a close-door meeting.Â Large number of developing and LDCs were kept out of the final negotiation process.
The decisions of the ministerial declaration under the Doha framework include: abolishing farm subsidies on export by developed countries immediately; tariff-free market access for cotton growing African countries; and relaxed rules of origin and some waivers in services trade for LDCs. The Nairobi ministerial also asked members to negotiate the unsettled areas of special safeguard mechanism (SSM) for the developing countries and also move for adopting a permanent solution on the issue of public stockholding for food security purposes.
The third part of the declaration, also known as operative part, guides the broader courses of action in future. Paragraphs 24 to 34 are included in this part. Paragraph-30 categorically mentions the big difference among the members on the future of Doha agenda. It said: "Members have different views on how to address the negotiations. We acknowledge the strong legal structure of this Organisation." Â
But in the subsequent four paragraphs, there are directions for continuing the unfinished works of the Doha agenda without setting any timeframe. As mentioned earlier, some 'ambiguities' are there, some of which may not be seen as done inadvertently. For example,Â Paragraph-33 says: "...we therefore agree that officials should work to find ways to advance negotiations and request the Director-General to report regularly to the General Council on these efforts." The use of 'should' makes the thing non-binding in nature while by putting 'shall' it could have been made obligatory.
Nevertheless, careful analysis of these paragraphs reveal that WTO members are in no way obliged to abandon the Doha negotiation process but have to rework many things to advance negotiations by accommodating some new issues.
MEMBERS MOVE:Â Around a month before the meeting in Geneva, there was an informal move by some members to initiate a discussion on introducing the so-called 'new-issues' at the WTO. A recent report, run by Third World Network, mentioned that developed and some developing countries met informally at the sideline of the annual World Economic Forum event in Davos in January to discuss the issues. In the meeting, some proposals were placed and discussed by the participating countries. Some countries proposed inclusion of digital trade, investment, small and medium enterprises and domestic farm subsidies in the multilateral trade negotiation process under the WTO. Again, some participating countries opined that new issues might be linked with the existing issues by adopting new approaches.
The Geneva meeting that took place on February 10 was attended by the ambassadors or mission heads of the member countries where the WTO chief requested them to acknowledge the differences among the members to move forward.
In the meeting many developing countries, especially African countries, expressed their dissatisfaction over the Nairobi deal. They said that the way the FIPs finally negotiated and brought the declaration was not acceptable. To avoid such kind of non-inclusive Green Room negotiation in future, they also suggested making the WTO process more transparent.
A large number of developing countries also opined for continuation of Doha negotiation as lots of things are still unfinished. Few of them, however, argued for flexibility in the 'single undertaking' mechanism as they found it difficult to firm up consensus. The Doha Work Programme adopted the single undertaking principle -- nothing agreed until everything agreed -- means no decision is ready for implementation unless all decisions are taken. That's why, differences among developed and developing countries on farm subsidy and industrial tariff forced the Doha negotiation process to continue for 14 years without much headway in other areas.
There was also no specific discussion on way forward although several proposals were placed in a scattered manner. And many members opined for further discussions to outline a path to push the negotiation through.Â The General Council meeting, scheduled on February 24, may provide some specific guideline.
BANGLASDESH'S PERSPECTIVE: The deliberation of Bangladesh on behalf of the LDCs was moderate. The key issue was -- while the outcome of the Nairobi conference was a step in the right direction, the biggest current challenge is to identify the best way forward. It, at the same time, favoured continuation of unfinished Doha tasks as well as inclusion of some new issues with clarity.
Bangladesh also stressed on 'the need to continue to work on the Nairobi decisions to make them meaningful for LDCs' and 'also the need to build on the other core issues of interest to LDCs, which are on the table for a long time.'
Although Bangladesh government, after the Nairobi meeting, termed the LDC-related decisions quite beneficial for the country, some questions are still unanswered. The mechanism of service waiver, decided in Nairobi, is yet to be fully elaborated and explained. Failure to accommodate 100 per cent or commercially meaningful market access to industrial goods in ministerial declaration is a setback. It is still unclear why Bangladesh is yet to ratify the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA), agreed in Bali ministerial conference in 2013.
Moreover, the mega regional trade agreements like the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) will pose additional challenges to LDCs, including Bangladesh, to derive benefit from the multilateral trade negotiation process. Thus, in the post-Nairobi work process, Bangladesh, as the coordinator of the LDCs, needs to take up these as well as other critical things in a more articulated manner.
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