Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 7 • Number 23 • 25th June 2003
WTO Director-General Sets Up Advisory Group Of Experts
CANCUN PREPARATORY PROCESS SHIFTS TO INFORMAL MODE
Trade negotiators in Geneva have started to meet informally, under the guidance of WTO Director and TNC Chair Supachai Panitchpakdi and General Council Chair Carlos Perez del Castillo. These Heads of Delegation meetings — attended by one or two persons from each missions — are being convened on a number of issues, identified in late May by Supachai in the form of a checklist to help focus the process of consultations. The checklist includes all of the areas currently in negotiations at the WTO and those areas that the Doha Ministerial Declaration cites for action by Ministers at the fifth Ministerial Conference in Cancun: agriculture modalities, non- agricultural market access, services, rules, dispute settlement, geographic indications (GIs), trade and environment, implementation issues and special and differential (S&D) treatment for developing countries, access to essential medicines, the Singapore issues, and a few additional areas. According to trade sources, informal negotiations have also started on a draft text for Cancun, which will include the areas mentioned in the checklist. Some Members, as well as civil society groups, have reportedly voiced concern that the Chairs are dictating the preparatory process, and called for differences of positions to be reflected in any draft text for Cancun.
The next meeting of the Trade Negotiations Committee, where all Members will be updated on progress in the informal process, is scheduled for 14-15 July, and the next General Council session will take place on 24- 25 July. No further meetings have, as of yet, been scheduled prior to the Cancun Ministerial.
ICTSD reporting; "Geneva Update," IATP, 23 June 2003.
WTO Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi has set up a Consultative Board to help him improve the functioning of the WTO. The Board will be tasked with preparing a report on how to strengthen the WTO, and to provide the tools to overcome future challenges related to an increasingly integrated economy. One of the priorities Supachai has expressed for his time as Director General is to strengthen the WTO as an institution. With this intention, the advisory group will be composed of experts in the field of international trade. Chaired by former GATT/WTO Director General Peter Sutherland, the members of the Consultative Board have experience in government, academia, business, the non-profit sector, trade and economic policy-making. These members include Jagdish Bhagwati of Columbia University in New York, Kwesi Botchwey, former finance minister of Ghana and now Director of the Africa Programs and Research at the Harvard Centre for International Development, Niall W. A. FitzGerald, co-chair and CEO of Unilever, and other. The announcement of the Consultative Board followed shortly after the Director-General had set up two informal advisory bodies with business groups and non-governmental organisations (see BRIDGES Weekly, 18 June 2003).
"WTO Director-General Establishes a Consultative Board on the Future of the Multilateral Trading System", WTO PRESS RELEASE, 19 June 2003; "WTO Chief Sets up Advisory Group On Future of Multilateral Trading System", WTO REPORTER, 24 June 2003.