GENEVA —
Ministers start meeting at the
World Trade Organization (WTO) for the first
time since 2017 on Sunday, hoping to break the logjam on several hot-button
issues in the global trade body’s in-tray.
اضافة اعلان
Led by Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala, the WTO makes decisions by consensus, making agreements harder
to reach.
Here are the main
issues on the table at the 12th WTO ministerial conference, which runs until
Wednesday in Geneva:
Covid-19 pandemic
In October 2020, India and
South Africa asked the WTO for a temporary
suspension of intellectual property rights on Covid-19
innovations to aid poorer nations’ pandemic responses. Washington backed the
idea of a time-limited IP waiver, but only on vaccines. With discussions
deadlocked, the US, India, South Africa and the EU formed a group to negotiate
a compromise.
Home to major
vaccine manufacturers, the four drafted a compromise text temporarily suspending
some patent protections for jabs, which has been submitted to other WTO
members.
It would only apply
to developing countries and those representing less than 10 percent of annual
global
Covid-19 vaccine exports —
thereby excluding China.
“I’m feeling
cautiously optimistic now that we will get this text ready for adoption by
ministers,” Sierra Leone’s Ambassador Lansana Gberie, who chairs the WTO’s IP
issues council, said in the build-up.
The big pharma
lobby is against waiving IP and says the idea is out of date, with vaccine
supply now outstripping demand. Public interest groups, meanwhile, say the text
is inadequate, by time-limiting the waivers and applying them only to vaccines
and not Covid treatments and
diagnostics.
Fisheries subsidies
The WTO has spent more than 20 years negotiating a ban on subsidies that
encourage overfishing and threaten the sustainability of world’s fish stocks.
There is cautious optimism that an agreement can be struck during the
conference. However, disagreements persist, particularly over so-called special
and differential treatment (SDT) for developing countries.
Special treatment
for the poorest countries is widely accepted but demands from some
self-identified developing countries for exemption from subsidy constraints,
including large fishing nations like India, have met resistance.
A draft text sent
to the ministers for review would bar exemptions for member states that account
for a yet undefined share of production. The length of exemption periods also
remains up for negotiation. India has demanded a 25-year exemption.
Okonjo-Iweala has
urged countries to compromise to support small-scale fishing, and “the
sustainability of our oceans, which is so important”.
WTO reform
Several members including the US and the
EU, but also many African
countries are calling for reform of the WTO. Rebooting the organization’s
dispute settlement system is the most pressing issue, with its appeals tribunal
frozen since late 2019 after the US under former president Donald Trump blocked
the appointment of new judges, demanding a dramatic overhaul.
President Joe Biden’s administration has also demanded reforms to make the WTO more efficient
and to prevent over-reach but has appeared more conciliatory. Washington has hinted it is open to
relaunching the appellate body. But it has not acted to unblock the situation,
and many observers believe a reset is not imminent and there are calls for
ministers to act.
“It is our
collective responsibility, including at the highest level, to ensure that the
WTO functions effectively to respond to all members’ needs and contributes to
addressing the most pressing issues in the world,” said Okonjo-Iweala.
E-commerce
Since 1998,
WTO members have agreed not to impose customs duties on
electronic transactions. In Geneva, ministers will decide whether to extend
this, as at past ministerial conferences. But this time a group of countries,
led by India and South Africa, are contesting the moratorium, saying it has a
negative impact on their customs revenues.
Since 2019, 86 WTO
members representing 90 percent of world trade have been negotiating e-commerce
provisions. However, an agreement at the conference is thought unlikely.
Agriculture and food
aid
Several agricultural issues will be on the agenda, with a heightened focus
on global food security, which has worsened amid
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Large agricultural subsidies, blamed for distorting global trade, remain
sensitive for rich and developing countries alike.
In 2015, WTO
members took the historic decision to eliminate export subsidies for
agricultural products. Many now want action on domestic measures that distort
trade.
No global agreement
is expected imminently.
Cautiously Optimistic
Speaking just hours before the opening of the first ministerial meeting in nearly five
years,
Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, WTO chief, said “I’m cautiously optimistic that
we’ll get one or two deliverables,” on a multitude of pressing issues on the
table, from overfishing to addressing the still raging pandemic and a looming
global hunger crisis.
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