Seattle 1999 • Volume 2 • Number 7 • October 1998

Implementation of Existing WTO Agreements: Developing Countries Focus on Special Treatment Provisions

Do More

Subscribe to Bridges

* required

Email Address: *

Country: *
Albania Algeria American Samoa Andorra Angola Anguilla Antarctica Antigua And Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas, The Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Bouvet Island Brazil British Indian Ocean Territory Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile China Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia Comoros Congo Congo, Democractic Republic of the Cook Islands Costa Rica Cote D'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) Croatia (Hrvatska) Cuba Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic East Timor Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) Faroe Islands Fiji Islands Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon Gambia, The Georgia Germany Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guadeloupe Guam Guatemala Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Heard and McDonald Islands Honduras Hong Kong S.A.R. Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Korea Korea, North Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macau S.A.R. Macedonia, Former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Mexico Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montserrat Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands Antilles Netherlands, The New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway Oman Pakistan Palau Panama Papua new Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Pitcairn Island Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Reunion Romania Russia Rwanda Saint Helena Saint Kitts And Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Pierre and Miquelon Saint Vincent And The Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Georgia And The South Sandwich Islands Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Svalbard And Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syria Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Togo Tokelau Tonga Trinidad And Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Turks And Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States United States Minor Outlying Islands Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Vatican City State (Holy See) Venezuela Vietnam Virgin Islands (British) Virgin Islands (US) Wallis And Futuna Islands Yemen Yugoslavia Zambia Zimbabwe

Employment Sector: *

First Name:

Last Name:

Organisation:

Enter the letters shown above:*

See also

The first Inter-sessional Meeting of the Special Session of the WTO General Council took place in Geneva from 26 to 27 October. Four such meetings will be held before the next Special Session in February to prepare the ground for the post-2000 round of trade negotiations. The first of these focused on the implementation of existing WTO Agreements. On the whole, developed countries felt that implementation problems were ‘within the realm of the manageable’ and should not slow the pace of further trade liberalisation. Developing countries, on the contrary, continued to emphasise the need for making effective implementation of existing agreements a priority. The meeting followed the Special Session of the General Council on 24-25 September, where countries aired their initial positions regarding the post-2000 negotiations (see Bridges Vol.2 No.6, page 1).

Special and differentiated treatment

Most developing countries evoked the same concerns with implementation. First and foremost of these was only partial implementation of the ’special and differential treatment’ provisions in favour of developing countries in the Uruguay Round Agreements (this concern was brought up by virtually every developing country speaker, and particularly so by Cuba, Egypt, India and Pakistan. India had already submitted a detailed paper on the implementation of the special and favourable treatment provisions in the WTO Agreements to the General Council Special Session in September). At the inter-sessional meeting, India particularly highlighted the need to develop guidelines for the implementation of the Understanding on Anti-dumping Article 15, which provides that ’special regard must be given by developed country Members to the special situation of developing country Members when considering the application of anti-dumping measures.’According to India, ‘Only this would ensure that trade interests of developing countries are protected from the harassment arising out of frequent anti-dumping investigations.’ India and other developing countries also stressed that special and differentiated treatment should offer better protection to developing countries against countervailing duties when they need to subsidise the development, diversification and upgrading of nascent industries. Many speakers noted that special treatment provisions should be activated to afford developing countries greater flexibility in bringing their domestic legislation in line with WTO Agreements, to enhance technical assistance in a number of fields, and to provide more legal assistance to developing country Members in dispute settlement proceedings. Indonesia noted that the preambular language in favour of their countries’ development needs in the Agreement on Trade-related Investment Measures remained a ‘dead letter’, and needed to be addressed. India summed up the concerns of many in its satement that ’since implementation of the TRIMs Agreement is coming in the way of industrialisation and balance of payments stability of the developing countries, it is necessary to review the relevant provisions of the TRIMs Agreement with the objective of ensuring that industrialisation of developing countries is not impeded.’

Agriculture and textiles

The implementation of two agreements in particular was deemed insufficient by practically all developing countries: the Agreement on Agriculture and the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing. In agriculture, the most frequently mentioned shortcomings were: export and production subsidies (and notifications thereof); tariff escalation and other market access constraints, including the administration and implementation of tariff quotas, as well as other confusing and complex administrative procedures. The Cairns groups of agricultural producers and the United States shared many of these concerns, particularly with regard to export subsidies. Most countries acknowledged, however, that these implementation problems could probably only be addressed within the framework of the round of agricultural negotiations slated to start in the year 2000. Many developing countries also expressed concern over the increasingly stringent SPS measures adopted by some WTO Members. ASEAN pointed out that risk assessment and risk management were new disciplines developing countries were still grappling with, and deplored the slow progress of international harmonisation of SPS measures. Korea, echoing the EU’s position on agricultural liberalisation, said that the Agreement on Agriculture did not ‘fully address the characteristics that distinguish agriculture from other sectors and thus failed to adequately address important non-trade concerns such as food security and positive environmental externalities.’ Korea also noted the need for defining and updating the rules governing regional trade agreements. On textiles, views continued to differ. Developed countries defended their record in conforming to the letter of the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC), while developing countries repeatedly pointed out that the implementation of the agreement had hardly increased their market access at all due to developed countries’ ‘backloading’ the most significant quota removals to the very end of the transition period. Colombia, Egypt and Pakistan argued most forcefully for better implementation of Agreement on Textiles and Clothing.

Recalling that the central objective of the ATC was the integration of textiles and clothing into the normal GATT rules through progressive phase-out of quota restrictions (to be completed by 2005), Colombian Ambassador Néstor Osorio Londoño pointed out that ‘although 33 percent of import trade may have been integrated, only four percent of the value of trade which was actually under quota restrictions has been freed of quotas in the European Union, and only six percent in the United States.’ In addition, Members had failed to implement the provision to provide ‘meaningful increases in access possibilities’for small suppliers and least-developed countries. Such access has in fact grown only by half a percent per year.

TRIPs

The Agreement on Trade-related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) also elicited much comment. Although Article 27.3(b) on the patentability of plants and animals other than micro-organisms is the only TRIPs provision that has to be reviewed according to the builtin agenda, interventions made it clear that many countries will bring other issues to the table. For instance, ASEAN said it would take up the issue of non-compliance with Article 66.2, which requires developed country Members to provide incentives to their enterprises and institutions to promote and encourage transfer of technology to least developed countries. Echoing many others, Cuba said that any revision of the agreement that would result in greater obligations for developing countries would be contrary to the ’special and differential treatment’ principle. It also said that technical assistance alone would not be sufficient for developing countries to change their IPR laws during the transition period (between five and ten years depending on the provision and whether the country is developing or least-developed). Similar concerns were expressed by South Africa, who said it had had to ‘answer no less than 200 questions on its regime to protect intellectual property rights, notwithstanding the fact that the government has embarked upon an intense internal process of legislative and institutional reforms to meet standards of international best practice that are consistent with the TRIPs Agreement’. In contrast, the United States expressed concern that many developing country Members had not yet informed the TRIPs Council on how they intended to meet their obligations when the TRIPs Agreement enters into force for them on 1 January 2000. It warned that technical assistance for achieving compliance was available, and that it ‘would not be sympathetic to claims that implementation cannot be met because of lack of assistance’.

Services

Several countries made remarks concerning services and the need for increased technical assistance for developing countries regarding both the implementation of GATS so far, and for the future negotiations. Turkey singled out movement of natural persons as an area where insufficient progress had been made and called for renewed attention to the issue during the upcoming negotiation round on further liberalisation of the services sector. Peru noted that accepting an emergency safeguard mechanism in services before launching the negotiations would provide a stimulus for developing country engagement and willingness to work out compromises.

Transparency, dispute settlement and other matters

The Canadian delegate noted that the trade agenda must become ‘more transparent, democratic and inclusive’ as the WTO increasingly deals with issues once considered domestic. ‘A strong and growing bias against globalisation, genuine concern about the domestic impact of competition for markets and foreign investment, and the fallout from the crisis in global financial markets is expressed in public pressure to reflect social and cultural concerns in the development of trade polices and the negotiation of trade agreements. Failure to address these concerns has eroded support for further trade liberalisation. These experiences are forceful reminders of the need for ongoing dialogue with major stakeholders and more transparency and access to the processes and policies of the global trading system.’ For more details on the transparency discussions, please see separate article on page 3. Finally, although the dispute settlement review is handled in a separate process, many developing countries commented on the high cost and difficulty in securing legal expertise for dispute settlement proceedings. India said that those proceedings were being ‘competititvely used by certain developed countries to prove their aggression to domestic constituencies’, and called for the development of procedures to protect developing countries’s interests. Developing country delegates proposed more legal experts within the Secretariat to assist them in preparing and defending their cases. Some favoured the establishment of an autonomous unit for the purpose. For more information on the dispute settlement review, see article on page 7. On behalf of ASEAN, Indonesia asked WTO Members to cease according preferential tariff treatment (beyond their GSP schemes), to countries ’subject to compliance with certain conditions intended to promote concerns such as workers’ rights, the environment, and illicit drugs’. Indonesia argued that such tariff incentives, offered by the EU to developing countries (see Bridges Vol.2 No.4, page 9), were contrary to the GATT’s most-favoured nation principle. Members agreed that the notification system inherent in most WTO agreements contributes to greater transparency. Questions were raised on some Members’ imperfect application of the system, on the one hand, and the difficulty of developing country Members to honour their notification obligations on the other. Increased technical assistance, as well as more flexibility in the form of special and differentiated treatment were proposed as solutions to the problem.

Post-2000 Preparatory Process

November 23-24 : Second Inter-sessional Meeting of the Special Session of the General Council (SS-GC). Negotiations already mandated at Marrakesh (”built-in agenda”);

December 14 & 16 : Third Inter-sessional Meeting of the SS-GC Recommendations on the follow-up to the October 1997 High-Level Meeting on Least- Developed Countries;

January 1999 Fourth Inter-sessional Meeting of the SS-GC Other possible future work on the basis of the work programme initiated at Singapore; Other matters proposed and agreed to by Members concerning their multilateral trade relations.

February 1999 Second Special Session of the General Council 2nd half Preparation for 3rd WTO Ministerial

30 Nov. to 3 Dec. 1999: Third WTO Ministerial Meeting : Adoption of the post-2000 negotiating agenda General Council Debates Public Access to Documents