According to the World Trade Organization’s Director General Pascal Lamy, the negotiators can succeed to complete the negotiation Round before the end of 2008. For this reason, there is a project to organize a mini-ministerial conference around Easter.
Nevertheless, even if some negotiators tend to be relatively optimistic, an agreement in the following months is quite unlikely. In fact, there is huge divides between negotiators in agriculture and, even more, in the industrial sector negotiations (NAMA). The draft released few weeks ago by the chair of the negotiation committees fails to propose an agreement acceptable by all the Membership. What is more, they leave many points in suspense. Furthermore, the negotiations comprehend also other issues where is still difficult to reach a consensus.
Even if ministers will come to Geneva the next weeks they will probably not succeed to solve the huge amount of issues that are still unresolved.
Beyond these disagreements among negotiators, the main cause that explain the many deadlines, that were missed by negotiators on the last years, is that developed countries refuse to acknowledge by their actions that this Round is about development and, according to the negotiation agenda (2001 Doha Declaration,) it should readjust the balance of the international trading system. In fact, notably the last trade negotiation Round (the Uruguay Round) increased the inequality of the international trading system. Developing countries were forced to liberalize many sectors and make important concessions (services, Intellectual Property, Agriculture) without receive any valuable improvements in the sectors where they have offensive interests (notably agriculture).
From many years during the Doha Round negotiations, developed countries thought that, at the end of the day, they would succeed to impose an agreement to the developing countries. They did not understand that the world changed and that a coalition of developing countries driven by emerging countries will resist and show its offensive interests. Trade negotiations are any more a question of finding a deal between US and EU but they become more multilateral. To reach an agreement, developed countries should understand that this time they will be constrained to make some concessions to developing countries. This is the price to keep an institution like the WTO, that plays an important role in regulating the world economy by law, alive.
What is more, this lack of will (and of good faith) by developed countries, cause huge difficulties to reach agreement on the issues that are very important for their citizens as environmental and social standards. In fact, even if these issues are defendables in terms of their potential positive impact on sustaiable developement and, under some conditions, to what we called co-development, developing countries refused to negotiate it. They think that is simply another way for developed countries to protect their markets. This reaction is understandable considering the mercantilist way in which developed countries negotiate the issues that matte rfor developing countries (notably for the poorest) (see, for example, Special Products Issues or flexibilites on NAMA negotiations).
In conclusion, if we are optimist an agreement will be reached before the end of 2009. However, the Uruguay conclusion teach us that surprises and strong accelerations in negotiations are always possible even in the most unlikely situation.
Codevelopment doha round north-south WTO global governance trade
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