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TWN
Info Service on WTO and Trade Issues (Oct23/18) Geneva, 23 Oct (D. Ravi Kanth) — The World Trade Organization apparently faces a litmus test as to whether it can produce a seemingly credible report on the views expressed by the majority of capital-based senior officials who are taking part in a Senior Officials Meeting (SOM) on 23-24 October “to point the way to deliverables for MC13 and provide political guidance and support,” said people familiar with the development. The WTO’s 13th ministerial conference (MC13) is scheduled to be held in Abu Dhabi in February next year. Over the years, successive chairs of the Doha Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC) have allegedly issued a narrative after high-profile mini-ministerial/senior officials’ meetings that invariably prioritized the issues and concerns of the major industrialized countries while pushing the core issues of the Doha mandate to the back-burner, said people familiar with the ongoing discussions. It is time to eschew the repeated practice adopted by the chairs in hearing what they want to hear while producing texts on what they want to do at the end of these meetings, instead of reflecting the views of all the members on a balanced and credible basis, said people who asked not to be quoted. Oftentimes, developing countries are pushed to the wall to fight for the inclusion of their mandated core issues, and it must be avoided at the SOM, said a trade envoy, who asked not to be quoted. GC CHAIR & DG SET GROUND RULES According to a restricted document (Job/GC/358) issued by the chairperson of the WTO’s General Council (GC), Ambassador Athaliah Lesiba Molokomme of Botswana, and the WTO Director-General, Ms Ngozi Okonjo- Iweala, “the aim is for Senior Officials to (i) take stock of progress on all issues, (ii) bless, endorse, and take decisions as appropriate, (iii) solve specific problems, (iv) point the way to deliverables for MC13 and provide political guidance and support, and (v) deliberate on pressing global issues”. “Our hope is that your involvement at this stage will provide the needed impetus to propel our work in Geneva and ensure that MC13 meaningfully delivers for people across the globe,” said the chairpersons of the GC and the TNC, respectively, in the document titled “Modalities”. The SOM, the two chairs said, “will be structured with a view to ensuring full participation, inclusiveness, and transparency. The SOM Programme is annexed to this document.” On the first day of the SOM on 23 October, the chairpersons will update Senior Officials on the ongoing work in their respective areas. They made it clear that “the floor will not be opened.” After the delivery of their reports, the SOM will enter into breakout sessions on the following issues: a. Given the nature of the expected discussion – that is, political guidance and resolving specific issues as appropriate, the Agriculture including Food Security and Trade and Development which covers a broad spectrum of issues such as LDC Graduation and Policy Space for Industrialization issues, amongst others, will be allotted two and a half hours each. b. As technical discussions are ongoing, the nature of the expected discussion on DS Reform and Fish 2 will be to reiterate political support and strong re-commitment to continue the technical discussions and negotiations with the objective of concluding them as soon as possible. As such, only one hour has been dedicated to each of these breakout sessions. c. To provide the opportunity for all Senior Officials to have candid and frank exchanges, every Senior Official will be assigned to one of the three breakout groups. The groupings will be designed to reflect balance and representation based on region, views, and interests. The group composition will be circulated on 20 October. According to the modalities, the questions posed to the participants are as follows: Agriculture * What would be the most optimal outcome on agriculture at MC13 and what contribution can it make towards enhancing global food security? What concrete steps should be taken in that regard? * How can MC13 best prepare the agriculture negotiations to achieve substantive outcomes? Trade and Development * Negotiations on Special and Differential Treatment (S&DT) and the Committee on Trade and Development in Special Session (CTD SS): What can be done to expedite concrete progress by MC13 on the ten G90 Agreement- specific proposals under discussion in the CTD SS, with a view to concluding the negotiations on S&DT as soon as possible? * Effective S&DT for the 21st century: What steps need to be taken to ensure that S&DT supports the development goals of developing and LDC Members, particularly when addressing trade challenges in the 21st century? * What outcomes can be envisioned at MC13 from the WTO reform discussions in the area of development, and what guidance can be given to the CTD in its continuing work on this matter? * Given that delegations are close to finalizing the negotiations on Annex 1 of the LDC Graduation proposal (WT/GC/W/807/Rev.2), are you ready to approve those outcomes at the SOM? How can Members make substantive progress on the provisions identified in Annex 2 of the LDC Graduation proposal and what concrete steps should be taken in the run-up to MC13? Fish 2 Can the Senior Officials: * Reaffirm the commitment in paragraph 4 of the MC12 Ministerial Decision on fisheries subsidies (WT/MIN (22)/33), by instructing the Negotiating Group on Rules to make recommendations to MC13 on the basis of the current text-based negotiations relating to outstanding issues, for additional provisions that would achieve a comprehensive agreement on fisheries subsidies, including in particular, disciplines on subsidies contributing to overcapacity and overfishing, and related provisions for appropriate and effective special and differential treatment for developing country and least developed country Members; and * Instruct their negotiators to negotiate with a view to reaching agreement by December for Ministers to approve at MC13. DSU (Dispute Settlement Understanding): * In Paragraph 4 of the MC12 Outcome Document, Ministers recognized the importance and urgency of addressing the challenges and concerns with respect to the dispute settlement system, including those related to the Appellate Body, and committed to conduct discussions with the view to having a fully and well-functioning dispute settlement system accessible to all Members by 2024. Since then, Members have identified dispute settlement as the highest priority for a well-functioning multilateral trading system. An overwhelming majority of Members have expressed their desire to deliver an outcome by MC13. Bearing in mind this mandate from Ministers in Paragraph 4 of the MC12 Outcome Document: * Do you see value in and do you politically support the work being carried out by experts in Geneva on dispute settlement that could get us to a successful outcome by MC13? The discussions in the breakout sessions on different topics will be navigated by the respective chairs dealing with the specific issues. For example, the discussions on agriculture will be facilitated by the chair of the Doha agriculture negotiations, Ambassador Alparslan Acarsoy of Turkiye. He had already issued some 49 questions for the consideration of senior officials. The discussions on the Doha fisheries subsidies negotiations will be facilitated by its chair, Ambassador Einar Gunnarsson of Iceland, while the discussions on issues concerning development will be navigated by the CTD chair, Ambassador Jose Sanchez-Fung from the Dominican Republic. The discussions on the DSU (Dispute Settlement Understanding) will be facilitated by the chair of the Dispute Settlement Body, Ambassador Petter Olberg from Norway. Ahead of the SOM, differences among members in all the areas came into the open. In many areas, there appears to be a clear divide between a large majority of members on one side, and a small group of industrialized countries on the other, said people who asked not to be identified. In the Doha fisheries subsidies negotiations, the chair has issued a room document (RD/TN/RL/180) clubbing together all the specific demands raised by members. The restricted room document, seen by the SUNS, suggests that there are fundamental differences in each article of the proposed agreement. The differences in the proposed disciplines, according to trade negotiators, are as follows: * With respect to the list of subsidies under A.1, most Members agree that there should be a list. Several Members appear to settle for the items in the list as per the Chair’s text, but there are important deletions and additions proposed by several other Members. Therefore, there might be a need to look at the list. * There is disagreement about whether there should be differentiated flexibility, in particular, based on the amount of subsidies (i.e. those Members that provide more subsidies have more responsibility to show that they are acting in a sustainable way) or one flexibility for all Members. * There is a large group of Members, in particular developing country Members, that wish to make the sustainability flexibility more stringent or less accessible, including Latin American countries, Indonesia, the African Group, ACP Group, India, and LDC Group. Other Members, particularly those with large fishing fleets, would seem to settle for a flexibility that would more easily allow them to continue to provide new subsidies. * The African Group, ACP Group, and Indonesia aim to discipline large-scale fisheries more but propose different approaches to do so. African Group proposes to restrict the core prohibition under A.1 to large scale (bolsters it to close some loopholes), Indonesia proposed that large scale does not have access to the flexibility and ACP Group considers that Members that provide a lot of subsidies to large scale fisheries should be subject to a more stringent sustainability test. * Both India and Indonesia consider that distant water fishing nations (as defined) should not have the flexibility to continue subsidies listed under A.1. In short, the SOM is likely to be a test of whether lessons from the past are properly and effectively learned or whether the same old practices will be repeated once again, said people who asked not to be quoted. +
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