Doha Round negotiations on strengthening ‘special and differential treatment’ (SDT) for developing countries have made no significant headway in recent months.
On 7 December the Committee on Trade and Development (CTD) heard updates from smaller group consultations on possible amendments to SDT provisions.
Those discussions have lately focused on a few proposals, such as one from the African Group seeking to more clearly allow developing countries to temporarily deviate from legal WTO constraints in order to implement policies that promote economic development (GATT Article XVIII). Others demand partial or complete exemption based on “financial, trade, or development needs” from obligations under the Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (Article 10.3), as well as administrative requirements in the Agreement on Import Licensing Procedures (Article 3.5). Members have also been discussing the establishment of a mechanism to monitor the implementation and effectiveness of existing SDT provisions and those resulting from the Doha Round.
In July, chair Shree Baboo Chekitan Servansing tabled compromise language for the proposals in an attempt to find common ground. However, divisions persist: provisions that supporters deem strong enough to be effective go unacceptably far in the eyes of their opponents. According to a source, opponents say the African Group’s proposal on Article XVIII could eventually translate into ‘a blank cheque’. Countries such as Mexico, Chile and Costa Rica, as well as some developed countries, want compliance with commitments to be ensured.
Discussions on the structure and reach of an effective monitoring mechanism looked at how it could evaluate whether SDT provisions were meeting the Doha mandate to be “more precise, effective and operational.” Some negotiators called for periodical reviews to see whether the mechanism itself needed altering. Members asked the WTO Secretariat to produce a document detailing similar mechanisms under discussion in other areas of the negotiations.
Least-developed countries continued to push Japan and the US to provide duty- and quotafree access to their exports, as most industrialised countries already do. Japan said it was planning to lift remaining barriers, but the US continues to link the extent of duty- and quota-free market access to the outcome of the Doha Round as a whole.
SVEs Stress Need for Continued Attention to Their Concerns
A group of ‘small and vulnerable economies’(SVEs)in December underlined the importance of maintaining the CTD’s ‘dedicated session’ as a monitoring forum, rather than one in which their various proposals for special treatment would be negotiated.
These countries, many of which are small island states, account for minute proportions of global trade. In the talks on agriculture and industrial goods, they have sought less exacting liberalisation obligations than those required of other developing countries. The Doha mandate calls on WTO Members to examine the problems faced by small and vulnerable economies, and to come up with recommendations to improve their integration into the multilateral trading system “without creating a new category of Members.”
At a brief meeting on 3 December, Members of the group expressed concerns about a potential ‘reopening’ of negotiations on their proposals in the CTD, as opposed to the relevant Doha Round negotiating committees. Barbados, speaking for the SVE group, stressed three lines of future work for the CTD: raising awareness of the particular vulnerable situations and constraints on production faced by SVEs; evaluating whether accession procedures for SVEs seeking to join the WTO are unduly burdensome; and looking at WTO obligations from which SVEs could be temporarily exempt in the event of natural disasters or comparable situations.