The South Centre organised a Workshop on the State of the Global Economy, and Reflection on Recent and Future Multilateral Negotiations. The Workshop provided a forum at the beginning of 2012 for policy makers, diplomats and experts of developing countries to reflect on the state of the global economy and prospects for developing countries, and on the implications of important multilateral negotiations that have recent taken place, and that will take place this year.

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.

T.R.A.D.E. Working Papers 22

INTRODUCTION (excerpt)

At the turn of the twenty-first century, the development of economic globalization is accelerating and the interdependent relationship between nations is deepening. The World Trade Organization (WTO), the so-called Economic United Nations, has been in operation for more than ten years. In this context, the world trading system of global multilateralism is further strengthening. However, strong unilateralism, the adversary of global multilateralism, originating from the contemporary sole superpower, the United States, has not been ready to concede voluntarily to the WTO multilateralism. During the latest decade, this superpower has been persistently, and by hook or by crook, imposing obstacles to impede the solidifying and strengthening of global multilateralism in the hope of maintaining its economic hegemonic status of unilateralism. Usually such unilateral behaviour is conducted under the camouflage of defending U.S. sovereignty, safeguarding U.S. interests, and enforcing U.S. law. New evidence of this is the mighty disturbance of the U.S. Trade Act’s Section 201 and the chain of disputes ignited by the United States in March of 2002 within the WTO, specifically in the area of the international steel trade. These disputes were collectively decided by the WTO Panel in United States – Definitive Safeguard Measures on Imports of Certain Steel Products.

Taking a macro view, the recent disputes concerning the U.S. Trade Act’s Section 201 (Section 201 Disputes) are nothing but the third big round of confrontations between U.S. unilateralism and WTO multilateralism during the last decade. Its occurrence is never occasional or isolated. It has been closely connected with, and continues from, the first and second big rounds of the same confrontation: “The Great 1994 Sovereignty Debate” in the United States, and the disputes over the U.S. Trade Act’s Section 301 (Section 301 Disputes) that occurred in the WTO during 1998-2000.

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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.

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South Perspectives - December 1998

OVERVIEW

A little more than three years ago the most comprehensive round of multilateral trade negotiations, launched in Punta del Este, Uruguay, in 1986, was concluded and a new organization, the WTO, came into being. The WTO has been entrusted with the implementation and enforcement of multilateral agreements negotiated during the Uruguay Round, covering wide-ranging aspects of the trade in goods and services, including the protection of intellectual property rights. These agreements entail an extensive programme of work with respect to implementation, reviews and further negotiations as mandated in the agreements. Moreover, provided there is a consensus among the WTO membership, new issues will be placed on the multilateral trade agenda. This is a formidable work programme requiring commitment of substantial human and material resources by all WTO members.

However, the experience of the past three years has demonstrated that the developing countries have not been able to participate in WTO matters in a way which effectively serves their interests, due to their lack of knowledge, resources and coordination. This has further tilted the balance of rights and obligations in the multilateral trading system as embodied in the WTO in favour of the developed countries. A major and sustained effort on the part of developing countries individually and as a group is therefore required to rectify the situation. The present document is an attempt to outline the challenges and broad directions that this involves.

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