Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 6 • Number 2 • 22nd January 2002
WTO Members Still Far Apart Over Chair Selection Before TNC
With less than a week to go before WTO Members formally convene for the first meeting of the committee that will oversee the multilateral trade negotiations launched in Doha in November 2001 (formally the Trade Negotiations Committee, or TNC), countries remain divided over the key procedural matter of who will chair the TNC and its subsidiary negotiating groups (see BRIDGES Weekly, 16 January 2001).
On the one hand, a number of influential developing countries — led by Pakistan and joined last week by China — favour the proposition that the Chair should come from a WTO Member, preferably a Geneva-based ambassador. This group also is pushing for the TNC to be overseen by the Member-run General Council, and for negotiations to take place within existing WTO bodies. On the other hand, the majority of Members - - including the Quad group of Canada, the EC, Japan and the US — believe that the TNC should be chaired by the WTO Director-General acting ‘ex-officio’, in his personal capacity. In general, these countries support the creation of specific negotiating groups, where Members would address the Doha mandate, as opposed to negotiating within existing fora. The Director-General is currently New Zealand’s Mike Moore, though the post is scheduled to change over to Thailand’s Supachai Panitchpakdi in September.
According to WTO sources, this situation has created a deadlock that must be overcome before Members can address other procedural and substantive issues in the mandated negotiations, including who will chair which negotiating bodies and regular WTO committees. General Council chair Stuart Harbinson has scheduled an informal open-ended meeting for all Members on 23 January to report back to the Membership on the status of his consultations on these issues; sources indicate that agreement at that meeting on the chair issue is unlikely.
Trade diplomats from developed countries have indicated they expect the WTO will eventually agree on a compromise arrangement that will give the TNC chairship to the Director-General, but that he will be subject to certain working instructions and will have to report back to the General Council on a regular basis. Officials also said that China might be willing to change its position if it can be assured that the General Council could exert adequate control over the TNC.
Moore pursues ministerial track
Director-General Moore has been meeting with key ministers over the past week and plans to meet with several more in coming weeks, particularly during his attendance at the World Economic Forum in New York from 31 January - 3 February. According to a WTO press release from 22 January, Moore’s discussions — with trade ministers from Canada, the EC, Mexico, South Korea and the US — have focused primarily on the "smooth launch of negotiations" as well as on WTO capacity building and technical assistance for developing countries.
Moore is pushing to have the TNC "get off to a good start," and said that failure to ensure a sound negotiating structure or to choose committee chairpersons soon would lead to delays that "cannot be afforded" if Members wanted to conclude the Doha negotiations by the deadline of 1 January 2005. He will be meeting with senior officials from India, Japan and Pakistan in the coming days. Given the different approaches taken by the latter country’s Minister and its Geneva-based operations as evidenced at the Doha Ministerial, some observers speculate, Pakistan’s insistent opposition to the Director-General adopting the TNC chair post could be up for revision.
BRIDGES Weekly will report on the outcome of the 28 January TNC in its next issue.
"Moore meets ministers, senior official in Doha follow-up," WTO PRESS RELEASE, 22 January 2002; "China voices opposition to putting WTO Director-General in Doha Chair," WTO REPORTER, 18 January 2002; ICTSD Internal Files.