Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 7 • Number 26 • 17th July 2003
Progress On S&D Slow, Discussions Continue
Heads of Delegations met on 2, 4, & 9 July to review the latest drafting of language aimed at strengthening WTO provisions on special and differential treatment (S&D) for developing countries. With a "Friend of the Chair" group — comprising Brazil, Kenya, Bangladesh, the US, EU and Norway — assisting General Council Chair, Ambassador Pérez del Castillo (Uruguay) in the re-drafting process (see BRIDGES Weekly, 12 June 2003), Members were able to agree on an additional proposal related to the Agreement on Import Licensing. This brought the tally of ‘agreed’ provisions to 15 out of an original 85-plus, which have been under review since February 2002. An updated Chair’s text on Members’ positions on the 38 proposals targeted for possible agreement at or before the Cancun Ministerial Conference is expected by the end of the week. The crux of recent debates reportedly circled around the issue of developed countries providing automatic flexibilities, exceptions, and/or assistance to developing countries.
Reducing burdens
The newly agreed proposal on import licensing (IL) deals with Article 1.2 of the Agreement, and aims to ensure that Import Licensing Procedures do not result in adverse trade effects on developing countries. To this end, import licensing procedures are to be as expeditious as possible. However, the true development impact of such an elaboration of existing language, which requires Members to take into account the "development purposes and trade needs of developing country Members" with respect to the administrative procedures for IL regimes, remained debatable, according to one trade expert. The obligation of Members to take explicit action to operationalise such a reduction in the administrative procedures, continued the expert, was virtually non-existent. As such, he felt that the effective outcome of this new language was ambiguous.
On this issue, as well as on the other 14 agreed proposals, numerous developing country delegates indicated their continued frustration with what they saw as a pervasive lack of progress on proposals that carried meaningful and economically valuable benefits to them.
Redrafting continues
With Brazil taking the lead in the "Friend of the Chair" group, the six countries have been meeting extensively over the last month and a half in attempts to find a way forward on proposals that have been essentially trapped in a state of perpetual standstill since July 2002 (see BRIDGES Weekly, 6 August 2002). General Council (GC) Chair Pérez del Castillo indicated that he hoped that by the next GC meeting on 24-25 July, Members would have a clearer idea of where they stood. In that drive for clarity, an updated text on the various proposals is expected by 18 July. It is unknown as of yet whether this update will simply reflect latest drafting language or will include Members’ specific positions.
Background
The 85-plus proposals over which Members have disagreed since mid-2002 are currently being dealt with in three categories. The first category, which a Heads of Delegations process is addressing, tackles 38 proposals that ‘could’ be agreed upon before or at the Cancun Ministerial (12 proposals were ‘agreed’ in principle in December 2002, and another two on 21 May 2003). The second category, comprising another 38 proposals, has been sent to relevant WTO subsidiary bodies, which are to report back to the GC just prior to Cancun (these would be open to early harvest). Category three, the 15 proposals on which delegates have had most difficulty in finding consensus, would be examined with regard to how they might be redrafted in a way more suitable to agreement, while preserving the concepts they embody (see full proposal at http://www.ictsd.org/issarea/development/resources/Latest-SDT-proposals.pdf).
The original mandate on S&D emanates from the 2001 Doha Ministerial Conference, where Ministers agreed that that all S&D provisions should be reviewed with a view to strengthening them and making them more precise, effective and operational.
ICTSD reporting.