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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. 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. South Centre Analytical Note - October 2008 This paper outlines the main events which took place during the WTO’s July mini-Ministerial. It goes on to provide a discussion of the key issues that were important in that meeting – agriculture, cotton, the non-agriculture market access negotiations, as well as systemic process concerns. It concludes with some thoughts on the challenges confronting developing countries – high food prices, livelihoods and climate change, and the implications these challenges pose for the WTO. 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) |