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India, together with the African Group and Cuba, has demanded temporary exemption for developing countries from disputes at the WTO for any trade-related measures implemented by them that are essential and necessary in response to the pandemic.
“Policy space is particularly important for developing countries since they lack the fiscal space developed members (countries) have to support their economies… through historically large stimulus packages,” the three said in a joint submission making a case for a moratorium on trade measures and flexibilities on intellectual property disciplines.
‘Extraordinary times’
Experts point out that while in normal times protectionism can be a problem, these are extraordinary times and developing and least developed countries need to provide as much support as possible to their industry and farmers through trade support measures.
“There has to be a context while analysing trade protection. During the secular downturn of the 1920s, a country could have been pulled up for adopting protectionist measures. Today, since we are having a humanitarian problem and are dealing with problem of lives and livelihoods, our action should be taken in that spirit,” said Biswajit Dhar, Professor, JNU.
The severity of the Covid-19 crisis requires that governments are enabled to take the measures needed to limit human toll caused by the pandemic on their people, the report added.
Several developing countries, including India, have been hauled up by developed nations for increasing tariff protection for manufactured products and raising subsidies for farmers.
Disputes have been filed against India at the WTO for allegedly breaching the IT Agreement by imposing import duties on mobile phones and other items and for providing subsidies to the sugar sector. Countries like Australia and the US have also been questioning India’s MSP support for rice and wheat.
“The trade regime should not penalise developing countries for taking action to support their citizens during such an extraordinarily difficult time. Developing countries should therefore be exempt from being taken to the WTO’s DSB if they implement trade measures that are essential and necessary in response to the pandemic,” the submission said.
Such a moratorium shall have a clearly defined scope and should be maintained only temporarily for the duration of the Covid crisis, the joint submission added.
The proposal is part of the revised paper titled `Strengthening the WTO to promote development and inclusivity’, which also talks about protecting the principle of special and differential (S&D) treatment, which is a treaty-embedded, non-negotiable right for all developing countries in the WTO.
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