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TWN Info
Service on WTO and Trade Issues (Sept20/03) Geneva, 1 Sep (D. Ravi Kanth) – Several members have apparently expressed concern over the “logistical details” announced by the WTO General Council chair in conducting from 7 September the “confessionals” for selecting a new director-general, particularly on the need to conduct the virtual consultations from different rooms in the Secretariat, people familiar with the development told the SUNS. In his email sent to members on 28 August, the General Council (GC) chair, Ambassador David Walker from New Zealand, had informed that the first round of consultations will be held on 7-16 September. Each member will be provided 10 minutes to indicate their four preferences among the eight candidates in the race to replace the previous director-general Roberto Azevedo, who joined PepsiCo Inc. on 1 September. The eight candidates vying for the WTO’s top job include Mr Jesus Seade Kuri from Mexico, Ms Ngozi Okonjo- Iweala from Nigeria, Mr Abdulhameed Mamdouh from Egypt, Mr Tudor Ulianovschi from Moldova, Ms Yoo Myung-hee from South Korea, Ambassador Amina Mohamed from Kenya, Mr Mohammad Maziad Al-Tuwaijri from Saudi Arabia, and Mr Liam Fox from the United Kingdom. Ambassador Walker, in his latest email on 28 August, said that “consistent with the confidentiality of this process, and in line with past practice, the consultations will take place at the Centre William Rappard, with necessary adaptations for the COVID-19 health situation.” Further, Ambassador Walker conveyed to members that “the Chairs of the DSB (Ambassador Dacio Castillo from Honduras), the TPRB (Ambassador Herald Aspelund from Iceland) and I will be consulting from dedicated rooms on the ground floor.” “Heads of Delegation will be invited to consult with us from an adjacent room, which will be equipped with a secure computer system (and) this equipment will be connected to us only,” the chair wrote in his email to the heads of delegation. But several members remain concerned as to why the GC chair has adopted this method for holding virtual consultations from dedicated rooms even though there are no restrictions being imposed by the World Health Organization or by the Swiss government for convening meetings in limited numbers in the same room by maintaining appropriate social distance. During the current Covid-19 pandemic period, particularly in the month of July, the chair had held open GC meetings with a limited number of trade envoys present in the room with minimal social distancing as well as on the virtual platform. However, the sudden shift to dedicated rooms with the use of computers could lead to informational breaches, said people familiar with the DG selection process. The GC chair, for example, has not clarified whether each of the three chairs (the GC, DSB and TPRB) will be sitting in separate rooms and the head of delegation will be in another separate room, said a person, who asked not to be quoted. More importantly, it is well established that the use of a computer-based system is a source of concern given its implications on “confidentiality and the potential to compromise the confessionary nature of the process,” the person said. In addition, members want the most important selection process for choosing the next director-general to be aligned with past practices with only “more modifications to allow for the implementation of COVID-19 measures such as social distancing in accordance with the Swiss regulations,” the person added. Having already conducted meetings in hybrid format involving physical presence in the room as well as on the virtual platform, it is clear that the WTO secretariat building has sufficient rooms that can meet these requirements without the introduction of a computer at this given point in time, said another person, who asked not to be quoted. “Countries need to object to the use of computers during confessionals as these can be recorded and accessed by software developers,” said a data analyst, arguing that “the computers will hear only four names which means that they have been programmed.” It may be “easy to arm twist countries based on the information which can be easily leaked,” the analyst said. In the past, the DG selection process had raised serious concerns about the issue of confidentiality where members were not informed about the number of preferences they had secured. Both in 2005 and 2013, the two losing candidates in the first round of the DG selection process had sought to know the number of preferences they had received but the then GC chairs had refused to share the information.
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