18th March 2008

SDT and Domestic Support in Agricultural Negotiation – some thoughts


Why any effective SDT for agriculture is difficult

There are two systemic difficulties with the provision of appropriate SDT to agriculture. These are exacerbated by a change in the intellectual environment since the current modes of SDT were conceived.

The systemic problems

The first systemic problem is that the current Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) aims to solve a problem that most developing countries do not have – and this is particularly marked in relation to domestic support. Consequently its SDT is couched in terms of moderating the implementation of rules designed to cure this irrelevant problem rather than dealing with the problem that most developing countries do have.

As Costas Michaelopoulus, among others, has argued

‘In agriculture, there is a serious problem on how to develop rules appropriate to promoting the interests of developing countries because the overall focus of the AoA has been on improving the policy environment in developed countries…agriculture in many developing countries was being penalised, not supported by government policy….the whole philosophy that drove the AoA was upside down…the agreed SDT provisions… have been couched in the same upside framework.’ [Michaelopoulus 2003: 28-29].

The second systemic difficulty concerns the decision making structure within WTO Rounds. The erratic progress of the Uruguay Round should not be forgotten. Whilst some broad positions had been established by 1991, many of the critical details were not agreed until the final months, weeks (and even hours) of the 11-year marathon. Many of these details were hammered out in fora from which the majority of GATT members were excluded. [Croome 1995].

The Doha dynamic will probably be similar (because it appears to be inherent to the task of negotiating a wide range of complex provisions simultaneously) even if more acceptable provisions now exist for involving all members in some way. There can be no agreement until the major WTO members have obtained compromises with which they can live, and then there is a strong imperative to finalise the deal as quickly as possible before this consensus is disturbed.