|
This issue of the South Bulletin reports on the meeting between the South Centre’s Chairman, Mr. Benjamin Mkapa, and China’s President, Mr. Xi JinPing, held in Tanzania. Mr. Mkapa explained the work and priorities of the Centre and President Xi praised the efforts of the Centre in promoting South-South cooperation and in increasing the representation of the Centre, and said China would continue to provide help to the Centre. This issue of South Bulletin focuses on trade – the WTO impasse and the possible roads ahead, the multilateral trading system and current topical WTO issues; and the IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings held in Tokyo on 9-14 October 2012. Analytical Note, December 2011 This Analytical Note provides an overview of the following: issues at stake in MC8 for developing countries and key messages for Ministers; the state of play including the main events that took place in the production of the ‘Elements for Political Guidance’ text; the legal status of the Chairman’s Statement as the outcome document of the Ministerial; important process issues to be mindful of during the Ministerial; a detailed look at the issues in the ‘Elements for Political Guidance’ text; and a paragraph by paragraph analysis of the ‘Elements’ text.
Analytical Note, November 2011 This Note is an analysis of the draft waiver decision submitted by the Chairman of the CTS to Ministers for adoption at the 8th Ministerial Conference. This is essentially a waiver from the most-favoured nation treatment clause (Article II. 1) in GATS to allow Members to provide preferential and more favourable treatment to services and services suppliers of LDCs. Two main issues have arisen in the draft waiver text. Firstly the types of preferences covered by the waiver, in order to be effective, needs to go beyond market access measures. The second issue is that of rules of origin. There is need to clarify the meaning of rules of origin in the waiver. Policy Brief, November 2011 The Declaration on the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and Public Health was adopted on 14 November 2001 by the 4th World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Meeting at Doha, Qatar. The declaration was made by the highest decision-making body of the WTO, with the aim of promoting a balanced interpretation and implementation of the provisions of the TRIPS Agreement in a manner that is supportive of a WTO Member’s right to protect public health and promote access to medicines for all. Analytical Notes, June 2011 1) Key Overview Paper: Present Situation of the WTO Doha Talks and Comments on the 21 April 2011 Documents WTO released on 21 April 2011, a 600-page package providing an overview of the last 10 years of Doha negotiations. This paper is an analysis of this overall package. Although Doha started as a “Development Agenda” with a pledge that developing countries’ interests would be at the centre, ironically there is hardly any development content left in the Doha elements. The agricultural deal has side-stepped the major issue of subsidies by developed countries. Special and Differential Treatment (S&D) for developing countries such as the Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM) is practically inoperable and ineffective. There are no results in cotton. In NAMA, the packaged is imbalanced and problematic in terms of the shrinking of developing countries’ policy space to carry out much needed industrialisation. The services report puts a ‘necessity test’ back in as an option in the domestic regulation negotiations. Key areas of interest to developing countries have been sidelined – Article XXIV; S&D and Implementation issues.
This issue of South Bulletin focuses on the deep impasse in the World Trade Organization’s Doha negotiations. The "crunch time" has come for these talks. Although political leaders in the G20 pledged to conclude the talks by 2011, this is not likely to happen because there are still big gaps between the positions of developed and developing countries. Policy Brief, November 2009 As trade ministers prepare to assemble November 30 in Geneva for further WTO talks, they are hearing another round of new and refurbished projections of how much wealthier the world might be after liberalizing trade. The upcoming ministerial is no different, and neither, fundamentally, are the projections, notwithstanding one recent claim that an ambitious Doha deal could deliver $300-$700 billion in global welfare gains, with the benefits "well-balanced" between developed and developing countries. These recent projections, from the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics, contrast with the World Bank's widely publicized 2005 estimates of global gains from a "likely Doha scenario" of less than $100 billion, with just $16 billion going to developing countries. Did economists find another $150-$350 billion in benefits for developing countries that the World Bank missed in 2005? Is development back in the Doha Round. The answer, of course, is no. The purpose of this policy brief is to look behind the press releases to examine the recent economic projections, review previous estimates, and put these seemingly large numbers in their proper context. As before, the claims that developing countries will be the big winners from Doha rest on shaky assumptions, controversial economic modeling, misleading representations of the benefits, and disregard for the high costs of Doha-style liberalization for many developing countries Research Paper 30, May 2010, Updated in February 2012 This paper discusses the principles and scope of activities of the world trade organization, addresses the imbalances in the existing rules and the problems faced by developing countries. Then it elaborated on various specific issues such as, the “Singapore issues”, labour and environmental standards, the “development issues”, market access negotiations and, at last, its functioning in decision-making system. South Centre Analytical Note - February 2006 SYNOPSISThe South Centre Analysis of the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration evaluates the developments in the Doha Work Programme since the launch of the Round, examines the implications of the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration and identifies some important strategic issues for developing countries that need to be considered in subsequent negotiation. South Centre Analytical Note - September 2004 INTRODUCTIONOn 31 July 2004, the WTO General Council decided to establish a framework for continued negotiations under the Doha Work Programme set out in the Doha Ministerial Declaration (DMD, WT/MIN(01)/DEC/1) of 2001. This note seeks to present a content analysis of the WTO General Council Decision of 31 July 2004 (WT/GC/W/535). The analysis of the main text of the July Decision in the first part of this Analytical Note is arranged according to the substantive issue areas identified in the DMD for either negotiations or discussions as linked to the relevant texts in the July 2004 General Council Decision. It also identifies the new negotiating timeframes established for each negotiating area and provides a brief analytical comment on the extent to which the July 2004 Decision impacts on the original Doha mandates. For ease of use, the Analytical Note has been divided into four main parts. Part I analyzes the main text of the July Decision, followed by Parts II, III, and IV, devoted to the analysis of Annex A (Agriculture), Annex B (Non-Agricultural Market Access), and Annex D (Trade Facilitation), respectively, of the July Decision. It is hoped that this note will be useful to readers as the implementation of the mandates in the July Decision proceed after the summer of 2004. Part I (Main text - A Content Analysis) Part II (Annex A, Agriculture Modalities) South Centre Analytical Note - June 2003 INTRODUCTIONParagraph 51 of the 2001 Doha Ministerial Declaration provides a unique but ambiguous mandate for the WTO’s Committees on Trade and Development (CTD) and on Trade and Environment (CTE). It requires that these two bodies “within their respective mandates, each act as a forum to identify and debate developmental and environmental aspects of the negotiations, in order to help achieve the objective of having sustainable development appropriately reflected.” This mandate attempts to implement WTO Members’ desire to ensure that the Doha Round trade negotiations promote the objective of sustainable development. This objective is deeply embedded in the WTO framework. Explicit references to it can be found in the WTO’s constitutional legal instrument – the Marrakesh Agreement to Establish the World Trade Organisation – and in subsequent WTO legal texts, such as the 1994 Ministerial Decisions on Trade and Environment and on Trade in Services and the Environment, and the 1996 and 2001 WTO Ministerial Declarations. The WTO Appellate Body in the US – Shrimps-Turtle dispute also stated that the objective of sustainable development recognised in the WTO Agreement’s preamble “informs” all of the covered agreements. The proper and effective implementation of the Paragraph 51 mandate could be the key to ensuring that the Doha trade negotiations result in a final outcome that promotes the sustainable development needs and priorities of developing countries and is consistent with the earth’s long-term ecological carrying capacity from the local to the global level. South Centre Analytical Note - May 2002 BACKGROUND (excerpt)By placing Special and Differential Treatment (hereafter referred to as ‘S&DT’) at the heart of the WTO Agreements, the Doha Ministerial Declaration explicitly acknowledged that S&DT is a fully accepted core principle in the WTO legal regime. Special and Differential Treatment should not be understood as a set of concessions made in favour of developing countries -- and the objectives recalled in the preamble of the Doha Ministerial Declaration are clear about this-- but as a right that these countries acquired in order to have a chance of participating in the multilateral trading system. |