DOHA, Qatar-The World
Trade Organization's Fourth Ministerial
Meeting concludes today with what WTO officials
hope will be the launch of a new round
of trade talks-a "development round." Meeting
officials say the talks could extend well
into the night-perhaps until midnight-after
running well into the night on Monday.
Earlier
in the day, negotiators indicated they had made some
progress toward resolving differences over the WTO's
rules on intellectual property (TRIPS) and pharmaceuticals
in times of public health emergencies. "We are
now in a very, delicate, sensitive and fascinating
stage," said the most senior European official
in Doha, Annemie Neyts-Uytterbroeck of Belgium, representing
the Presidency of the European Union's executive commission. "These
are dangerous and interesting times," she added.
She said the 15 nations in the world's biggest trading
bloc feel that the talks have now reached the point
where flexibility is beginning to show and that, as
far as she was concerned, no country had sought to
impede progress on any particular point. "There
is a lot of give and take here. We want to see success
along a broad agenda, but we know we cannot get full
satisfaction." She said one of Europe's main concerns
at the Conference is that there are too many member
nations of the WTO that do not have the resources to
implement the agreements they have underwritten. "By
stressing our concern for the environment, we are not
a protectionist bloc and we are concerned seriously
with the problems faced by developing nations," she
said. "We are ready to show flexibility."
But some participants
in the meeting voiced skepticism Monday that
Conference outcome will be as advertised. "They'll
call it a new round," said third-world activist
Vandana Shiva, "but it won't really be a round." A "new
round," she said, means a new agenda, a slate
of new topics-not a reworking of old issues-to
be discussed by the world's trade negotiators.
But, she said, it doesn't look as if this meeting
will agree to place any new topics on the table.
There has been significant opposition voiced against
taking up the so-called "Singapore issues," she
said, adding that the only one that might survive
is investment. One issue, she added, doesn't make
a "round."
But Barry Barry
Coates, Director of the London-based World Development
Movement, disagreed. Even if
some of the items up for discussion aren't really
new, he told Conference News Daily, they still
add up to an agenda for negotiation that the WTO
will have to address. "And that's really a
'new round,'" he said, "whatever one
calls it." He added that, in his view, it
is highly unlikely that the investment issue will
survive, given the opposition of developing countries.
There was a chance, he said, that the issue of
industrial tariffs might make the final cut and
become part of the new round-even though the issue
is as old as the multilateral trade system.
But did Coates
think that the agenda that comes out of this
meeting should be called a "development
round"? "I don't believe it is," he
answered. "To be a development round it would
have to include issues such as anti-dumping and
far faster progress on agriculture-issues that
are important to the developing countries."
But even if the ministers' declaration at this
meeting does include references to agriculture
issues and intellectual property rights (TRIPs)
and pharmaceuticals, those topics are not new but
ongoing discussions from earlier rounds, according
to Jim Redden of the Australian Council for Overseas
Aid.
"What we need is further progress on these
issues," he told Conference News Daily, "that
actually benefit developing countries so that something
new is launched. It's not what they call 'the round'
that's important," he added, "but what's
in it."
According to John Madeley, here for The Observer
of London, even investment issues (TRIMS) are left
over from the previous round. He said it was unlikely
that the ministers would agree to add the hotly
debated issues of the environment and labor standards
to the new round's agenda.
But, aside from its content, what is actually
involved in the launching of a new round of trade
talks? According to several knowledgeable people
attending the Doha meeting, it involves a series
of committee meetings that could stretch out over
several years. The last round went on for seven
years, they pointed out.
And with the number
of WTO members steadily on the rise-and especially
with the accession of major
players such as China (and possibly Russia in the
near future)-they said the process is almost certain
to become more complex and time-consuming. "I
wouldn't be surprised if the next round took 10
years," said Madeley.
In addition to the committee work for the round,
the experts say the WTO's biennial ministerial
meetings will also be an important part of the
process, monitoring it and providing guidance to
the negotiations and political muscle as well.
But, they caution, once a new round is launched,
it will be around for a long time to come.
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