• Investment World
• eWorld
• Catalyst
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest

Sharad Joshi

Those who are gloating over the failure of the Cancun Ministerial and hoping that the WTO is dead are as wrong as they can be. The trade body and negotiations will live on, but hopefully become more open and less complex, says Sharad Joshi.

CANCUN was an accident that was waiting to happen. Like in a Shakespearean tragedy, there was no single villain — any party that alone could be faulted. The conference of Ministers was not a battle between evil and good. Every player character had his own agenda that appeared not only perfectly legitimate and even sacred to him and so each pushed his line to the point that they all got tangled up.

At the Cancun Ministerial gathered 148 intelligent men with their entourages of experts most of whom had made their careers through public service and who stood devoted to the defence of the best interests of their countries.

They were to continue the good work of over a decade and prepare the blueprint of a new, open-ended system of trade that would be governed by the principles of comparative advantage; most-favoured nation'' treatment to all the nations; and parity of treatment to all commodities — domestic or imported — once inside their national frontiers.

A formidable task by any standards in a world just recovering from the dark days of the Cold War and sharply divided into nations of varying sizes, populations, resources and incomes, employment, nourishment, historical traditions and cultural patterns. Add to this the emergence of international activism, particularly since 9/11, spearheaded by the network of NGOs. And a task-in-progress from time immemorial and which will go on indefinitely.

Those in charge of organising the Doha Round expected the ministers to achieve it in three days at Cancun. It did not, could not, happen within the time schedule. The conference failed to even evolve a draft of an agreement before the curtains came down. The reactions were varied. Some prominent delegates from the developing countries were clearly gleeful at what they called "Victory to the People''.

One of them did not conceal that he felt elated; yet another said he was happy. But Bangladesh's Trade Minister did not share this view. "I am really disappointed," he is reported to have said. Another all but shed tears over a great opportunity lost to reduce poverty by enlarging trade, enhancing access to the markets of the develop countries, and discouraging dumping of subsidised produce by the rich onto the markets of the poor countries. The Doha schedule for improving upon the Marrakesh Agreement was certainly rudely derailed. But those who are gloating and forecasting the demise of the WTO are as wrong as they can be. The negotiations have not been formally given up and will continue in one form or another. Enlarging networks of contacts is an endeavour that can never disappear from the face of this earth. Clearly, the Doha Round cannot accomplish its programme before the scheduled date of December 31, 2003. Of course, the seeds of uncertainty were sown in December 1999 when the meeting collapsed. A mortal blow could have been struck in Cancun; no doubt the antagonists of WTO hoped for as much. But the work will continue. Diplomats have committed themselves to meeting at the

WTO headquarters and hold a formal meeting before December 15. At Cancun, all major players helped create a fog around what agenda they had agreed to earlier. Agriculture constituted the `plat de resistance' of the entire fare at Cancun. The poor countries have been insisting, for some time, that the rich show concrete progress on fulfilling the Marrakesh commitments and stop pushing for unnecessary enlargement of the WTO agenda. These countries, which were not satisfied with the measures taken by the US and the EU, were not even convinced of the honesty of the arguments put forward by the rich countries that had failed to respect the commitments on scaling down domestic support and abolishing export subsidies. The larger developing countries were able to cover up the basic differences in their interests and positions and, through some skilful diplomatic legwork, present an effective opposition.

Non-governmental organisations that appears to have a built-in phobia against all wealth, enterprise, innovation and global network encouraged brinkmanship — both inside and outside the conference hall.

The fast approaching presidential elections in the US and the general elections in India contributed to propensity of all parties to mind the trees rather than the forest. They remained till the end committed to the short-term risks and disadvantages and ignored the indisputable long-term advantages of an open system.

Diplomats may or may not succeed in putting the Doha train back on the rails. But, the rapid advances in the information and genetic technologies combined with the sheer magnitude of the work involved in building up a trade system on bilateral and regional trade agreements will force nations to come back to negotiating a global trade system, hopefully taking care this time to avoid the hassles, non-transparency and the pedantic complexities of the WTO structures and dispositions.

(The author is Founder, Shetkari Sanghatana. He can be contacted at sharad@mah.nic.in)

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication

Stories in this Section
Confusion continued

Copyright © 2003, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line