WTO: Bali Package Still Not Close Enough; TRIPS Issue Likely To Be Agreed

Even for the “low-hanging fruit,” the 125 ministers gathered in Bali at this week’s World Trade Organization Ninth Ministerial Conference will have to work hard. After talks on food security and subsidisation broke down last week in Geneva, the WTO has rearranged the agenda to allow more space for ministers to engage in direct negotiations, WTO Spokesman Keith Rockwell said at a briefing on the eve of the event.

Meanwhile, agreement on debates about not allowing “non-violation cases” under the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) is expected to pass. Such cases permit one member to challenge another’s policies if expected benefits are taken away, even if no specific WTO agreement was violated.

More information about the 3-6 December ministerial in Bali, Indonesia is available here.

Three core aspects have been put on the agenda for Bali in an attempt to advance the stalled negotiations on the 2001 Doha Development Round. The “low-hanging fruit” are trade facilitation, agriculture and development and tariff rate quotas.

But the Indian government said it was prepared to stand by its commitment to not agree on strict caps on farm subsidies at 10 percent of the total value of farm production. India’s Minister of Commerce and Industry, Anand Sharma, told reporters last week that even an interim solution (which would allow for a transition period of four years) offered by developed countries would oblige India to cut back on its food subsidies.

Sharma told the Times of India that the Bali Ministerial meeting was an “opportunity for the developing countries to stay united in resolve to demonstrate the centrality of agriculture in trade talks.”

Other issues of contention, according to Rockwell, are a reduction of export subsidy spending by 50 percent by the end of the year, a proposal that was not sitting well with the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries, he said.

On the other hand, developing countries are opposed to a potential opt-out from a new system that would allow developing and least developed countries to fill in where developed countries had missed fully using tariff reduced quote for import.

US Ambassador to the WTO Michael Punke last week rejected a postponement to allow cutting the deal and said he was sceptical about success of the WTO ministerial. But Rockwell said yesterday (2 December) that there was a “broad feeling” that if there were assurances with regard to food security and assurances that developing countries would “not be asked to implement measures for which they have no capacity,” then one could “see brackets fall away quite quickly.”

Success would “put our negotiations back on track,” Rockwell said. Failure, meanwhile, “could leave us in the cold for many years to come as members seek alternatives for negotiating for trade liberalisation in regional or bilateral negotiations.”

There are an enormous number of such negotiations underway, he said. China, for example, just recently announced that it was willing to join the negotiations of the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA).

Rockwell also hurried to point to other areas dealt with by the WTO, like dispute settlement or monitoring of existing agreements.

“We are so close,” Rockwell said about the chances to cut the deal in Bali. Ministers only need more flexibility and political will to push the project behind the finish line.

Nongovernmental organisations, meanwhile, have announced a wave of protests against the Bali conference.

Meanwhile, from the IT industry, the potential positive effects of trade were underlined in a position paper, but the WTO Information Technology Agreement has not been made part of the Bali package, due to ongoing discussions after additional requests by China.