Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 6 • Number 35 • 17th October 2002
WTO Members Discuss WTO’s Role And Functioning At Weekend Retreat
At an 11-12 "retreat for WTO permanent representatives" organised by General Council Chair Ambassador Sergio Marchi, Canada, some 100 developing and developed country Ambassadors convened during the weekend to informally address themes such as "International Trade Relations And The Role Of The WTO", "The WTO Agenda & Governance" and "The WTO And The World We Serve". Amongst the issues discussed were the question of whether Members were generally satisfied with the WTO’s contribution in achieving fundamental objectives such as peace, raising living standards and promoting sustainable development; whether the consensus principle could be modified so as to prevent misuse of veto; and whether the WTO should build closer ties with parliaments, trade unions, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the private sector.
Speaking to the WTO envoys, former WTO Director-General Peter Sutherland pointed to the danger of "irrelevancy" of the WTO, arguing that private business now focuses more on bilateral negotiations rather than on developments at the multilateral level. One way to reverse this trend, he said, would be to speed up the decision-making process at the WTO — especially the negotiations currently held under the Doha mandate. Stating that he generally considered the Doha agenda somewhat overloaded, Sutherland said, however, that, "with the ministers having approved the [Doha] agenda, there is no going back on it."
In his remarks to the Ambassadors, new WTO Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi raised several organisational issues, such as the need to overcome certain resource constraints within the WTO Secretariat, the need to provide the office of the Director-General with more discretion and flexibility, general options for WTO reform, as well as possible ways to reconcile trade disputes outside the formal dispute settlement mechanism. Furthermore, Supachai circulated a proposal on establishing an advisory group aimed at fostering consensus amongst the Membership on several negotiating areas — a suggestion which was reportedly rejected by various developing countries. According to a trade source, several Members had views different to those expressed by Supachai, stressing the need to clearly separate the roles of the Director- General and the Secretariat, as well as to ensure that the Secretariat provides impartial services to the whole Membership. With respect to the proposal to strengthen the Director-General’s role as a mediator in trade disputes, it was reported that some Members preferred to keep the current process as it stands now. Whereas some developing country Members told Supachai that they preferred the current consensus principle to stay untouched, others indicated that some degree of modifying the decision-making process could be workable. Nevertheless, Members could not agree on what role the Director-General should have in the complex negotiations.
ICTSD reporting; "Sutherland Warns WTO On Direction," WASHINGTON TRADE DAILY, 14 October 2002.