WTO MEMBERS 'CAUTIOUSLY POSITIVE' ABOUT S&D APPROACH

At the Committee on Trade and Development Special Session (CTD-SS) meeting on 7 December, Members considered a new approach to negotiations on special and differential treatment (S&D) suggested by Chair Faizel Ismail (South Africa). The Chair's informal suggestions for organising further work, first presented to Members on 3 December, seek to enable developing countries to access enhanced flexibilities in WTO rules to address particular development challenges while remaining consistent with a rules-based multilateral trading system. They are, however, still at a very preliminary stage of discussion. Several Members indicated that they had not had time to look at the approach exhaustively and needed time for further reflection. The meeting decided to continue discussions through informal consultations and a meeting early next year.

Background

Paragraph 44 of the Doha Declaration states that all S&D provisions "shall be reviewed with a view to strengthening them and making them more precise, effective and operational." However, negotiations on these provisions have not progressed significantly in the current round of talks.

Discussions in recent years have been characterised by a split between two groups: those who want to first deal with the set of 88 agreement-specific proposals for S&D enhancement, led by the African Group of developing countries; and the developed countries which want to first address the controversial "cross-cutting" issues such as the principles and objectives of S&D and the creation of a system to differentiate among developing countries and provide them different levels of S&D (see BRIDGES Weekly, 8 April 2004).

A proposed way ahead

The Chair's new informal suggestions build upon the approach suggested at the previous CTD-SS meeting on 28 October (see BRIDGES Weekly, 3 November 2004), where the meeting considered looking at the "horizontal issues," or "underlying causes" behind the agreement-specific proposals to try to understand their motivation and intent. Chair Ismail's suggestions for this meeting described four elements of a conceptual approach to S&D proposals: effective market access, enhanced flexibility in WTO rules, consistency with a multilateral rules-based system, and enhanced capacity-building programmes.

He also put forth different options for the 88 agreement-specific proposals for operationalising S&D. They could be redrafted or merged according to this conceptual approach, or referred as they are to ongoing negotiations. Alternately, proposals could be withdrawn and the development issues that underlie each one could be addressed in the context of four thematic groups of cross-cutting issues. Possible issue groups include addressing the issue of enhanced flexibility, developing the monitoring mechanism concept, addressing the need for enhanced capacity building, and building the coherence of policy making and implementation amongst multilateral agencies. These suggestions were made in a very informal manner, and Members did not make any decisions on them, nor are they likely to.

Reactions to proposals vary

While sources stressed that nothing has been decided, some Members raised concerns about the new approach at the meeting. Several countries, including some of the original proponents of the 88 agreement-specific proposals, suggested that this potential new approach might involve a long process that would distract Members from the Doha mandate to make the agreement-specific S&D provisions more "precise, effective and operational". One delegate pointed out that since the CTD-SS is supposed to come forth with recommendations on the specific proposals by July 2005 as per the July Package, Members should focus on doing so before addressing cross-cutting issues.

One African country suggested the CTD-SS continue on the proposal from the last meeting to just group the 88 proposals according to themes such as capacity building, technical assistance, supply-side constraints, flexibility and monitoring.

Several developing countries said that they needed time for further reflection on the proposed course of action. A few developed countries reiterated their belief that S&D was intended to facilitate developing countries' integration into the multilateral trading system, and that this understanding would have to be reflected in the approach of the CTD-SS to S&D negotiations. However, the meeting was described as "cordial" and "positive" in its attempt to find pragmatic ways to overcome the S&D stalemate, in clear contrast to earlier meetings of the group.

The Chair confirmed that he would continue "dynamic processes" that would attempt to sequence work and enable Members to further reflect on possible approaches before a meeting early next year. He also mentioned that he had spoken to the Chairs of other WTO negotiating bodies, and planned to do so again, regarding S&D provisions that had been referred to them (see BRIDGES Weekly, 4 June 2003). The Chairs reportedly reacted positively to the idea of addressing these provisions in their respective negotiations.

Members at the meeting also recognised that the Chair's suggestions themselves should not be negotiated, but that Members should spend time considering the current S&D negotiations in the context of the principles contained in the suggestions.

ICTSD reporting.