Monday, June 16, 2008

Statement on rules of the Doha Round

by Jo Black

Mr. Kamal Nath, Indian Minister of Commerce and Industry, while commenting on the Working Document of the Chairman of the Negotiating Group on Rules of the Doha Round released on 28 May in Geneva, stated that despite the near unanimity of the entire WTO membership to have a revised text on Rules before moving into a horizontal process on Agriculture and NAMA modalities, it is disappointing that one major developed country has again succeeded in holding up the process because of its desire to protect its WTO inconsistent measure of zeroing in anti-dumping.

Nath observed that the Working Document was a mere compilation of ‘who said what’, which did not help an iota in moving the process forward.

He remarked that the deep imbalance created by the Chair in his draft text of 30 November 2007, in his effort to provide comfort to one major country, was the root cause of reluctance on his part to come forward with a balanced revised text.

He rejected the reasoning advanced by the Chair for not coming out with a revised text, as a piece of inspired fiction.

On the issue of special and differential treatment of Fisheries Subsidies, which is of vital concern to India, China, Indonesia and many other developing countries, the Minister said that the draft Rules text, which stands unchanged even now, was fundamentally and deeply flawed.

The proposals of the draft text, if allowed to go through, would imperil the livelihoods of millions of poor and vulnerable small, artisanal fishers and just could not be accepted by India.

The Minister remarked, the issue of Fisheries Subsidies is on exactly the same footing as Special Products in Agriculture, because both seek to protect the livelihood and food security of the most vulnerable sections of the population.

He added that without much greater clarity through a revised text, he did no see much chances of moving into a horizontal process on Agriculture and NAMA modalities.

Nath mentioned that most developed and developing countries had made it abundantly clear both to the DG, WTO as well as the Chair of the Rules negotiating Group that without a revised Rules text, it would not be possible to move into a horizontal process, culminating in a Ministerial in June.

He wondered whether the officials were actually serious about holding horizontal meetings or they were just succumbing to pressure from one major country, thereby jeopardizing the efforts to conclude the Doha Round by December 2008.

 

 

 

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