The Doha Round of Talks

DOHA TRADE TALKS

INTRODUCTION

The Doha Trade talks are a series of trade liberalization negotiations initiated
under the World Trade Organization (WTO) in late 2001, which focus on trade
liberalization for a wide-range of agricultural products. The round draws its name
from the WTO Ministerial Conference that was held in Doha, Qatar, from November
9 to November 14, 2001.
In particular, these rounds of trade talks are aimed at helping developing
countries whose exportable goods are heavily concentrated among agricultural
products develop their international trade. Poor countries complain that rich countries
spend $1 billion a day on trade subsidies. By enacting trade liberalization on
agricultural products, developing countries can be helped the most and poverty
reduced. Other subjects covered by the trade talks include trade in services and
intellectual property issues.
At the conference, trade ministers agreed to undertake a new round of
multilateral trade negotiations. The ministers passed two declarations. The first, the
main declaration folded the on-going negotiations in agriculture and services into a
broader agenda, which is commonly known as the Doha Development Round. In
addition, the Doha agenda included the topic of industrial tariffs, topics of interest to
developing countries, changes to WTO rules, and other provisions. The second
declaration dealt with the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual
Property Rights (TRIPS) and allows government to be flexible of TRIPS to deal with
health problems.
The meeting took place just two months after the World Trade Center attack.
As a result, some government officials called for greater political cohesion and saw
the trade negotiations as a means toward that end. Some officials thought that a new
round of multilateral trade negotiations could help a world economy weakened by
recession and terrorism-related uncertainty.
After the Doha Round subsequent ministerial meetings took place
in Cancún, Mexico (2003), and Hong Kong (2005). Related negotiations took place
in Geneva, Switzerland (2004, 2006, 2008); Paris, France (2005);
and Potsdam, Germany (2007).

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Ministerial Declaration

The Doha Ministerial Declaration mandate for agriculture calls for

comprehensive negotiations aimed at substantial improvements in market access;
reductions of, with a view to phasing out, all forms of export subsidies; and
substantial reductions in trade-distorting domestic support. These topics — domestic
support, export subsidies, and market access — have become known as the three
pillars of the agricultural negotiations. The Declaration also provides that special and
differential treatment for developing countries would be an integral part of all
elements of the negotiations. The Declaration took note of non-trade concerns
reflected in negotiating proposals of various member countries and confirmed that
they would be taken into account in the negotiations. March 31, 2003 was set as the
deadline for reaching agreement on “modalities” (targets, formulas, timetables, etc.)
for achieving the mandated objectives, but that deadline was missed. During the rest
of 2003, negotiations on modalities continued in preparation for the fifth WTO
Ministerial Conference held in Cancun, Mexico September 10-14, 2003.

Intellectual property declaration

The Doha Declaration on Public Health sought to alleviate developing country

dissatisfaction with aspects of the TRIPS regime. It delayed the implementation of
patent system provisions for pharmaceutical products for least developed countries
(LDCs) until 2016. The declaration committed member states to interpret and
implement the agreement to support public health and to promote access to medicines
for all. The Declaration recognized certain “flexibilities” in the TRIPS agreement to
allow each member to grant compulsory licenses for pharmaceuticals and to
determine what constitutes a national emergency, expressly including public health
emergencies such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis or other epidemics.

China's accession to the WTO

The conference approved the accession of China to the WTO on November 10.

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The most recent round of negotiations, July 23-29 2008, broke down after
failing to reach a compromise on agricultural import rules. After the breakdown,
major negotiations were not expected to resume until 2009. Nevertheless, intense
negotiations, mostly between the USA, China and India, were held in the end of 2008
in order to agree on negotiation modalities. However, these negotiations did not result
in any progress.
The most significant differences are between developed nations led by
the European Union (EU), the United States (USA) and Japan and the
major developing countries led and represented mainly
by India, Brazil, China and South Africa There is also considerable contention against
and between the EU and the U.S. over their maintenance of agricultural subsidies—
seen to operate effectively as trade barriers.
Doha Round talks are overseen by the Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC),
whose chair is the WTO’s director-general, currently Pascal Lamy. The negotiations
are being held in five working groups and in other existing bodies of the WTO

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THE DOHA DECLARATION

The Doha declaration – comprising of a main declaration, a declaration on

trips agreement and public health and the decision on imp0lementations – launches
the future work programme of the WTO and includes elaboration and time tables for
the current negotiations in agriculture and services and possible negotiations in a
range of other issues.

IMPLEMENTATION ISSUES

A number of implementation issues have been addressed in the decision on

implementation – related issues and concerns including longer time frame (6 months)
for compliance with new SPS and TBT measures, moratorium of two years on non-
violation complains under the TRIPS agreement, need for special care for initiation of
back to back anti-dumping investigations within a year and co-operation and
assistance by member in investigations relating to declared values. The declaration
agrees that negotiations on all other outstanding implementations issues shall be an
integral part of the work programme. Where specific negotiations are mandated,
relevant implementation issues shall be addressed under that mandate and other
outstanding implementations shall be addressed as a matter of priority by the relevant
WTO bodies.

Agriculture
The declaration commits to comprehensive negotiations aimed at substantial
improvements in market access for developing countries; reducing of, with a view to
phasing out, all forms of export subsidies; and substantial reductions in trade
distorting domestic support being given by the developed countries. It also takes notes
of non-trade concerns of developing countries and their development needs including
food security and rural development. Special and differential treatment for developing
countries would be an integral part of the negotiations.

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Services
The Negotiating Guidelines and Procedures adopted by the Council for Trade
in Services would form the basis for continuing negotiations in services with a view to
achieving the objectives of GATS. The declaration recognizes the large number of
proposals submitted by the members on various sectors including on movement of
natural persons.

Industrial tariffs
The negotiations under industrial tariffs would aim at reducing or as
appropriate eliminating tariffs, including the reduction of tariff peaks, high tariff
escalations, as well as non-tariff barriers, in particular on products of export interest to
developing countries. Product coverage shall be comprehensive and without a priori
exclusions with negotiations taking into account the needs and interests of the
developing countries including through less than full reciprocity in reduction
commitments.

TRIPS
The work programme mandates negotiations on establishment of a multilateral
system of notification and registration of geographical indications for wines and
spirits by the fifth session of the Ministerial Conference. The issues related to
extension of the higher level of protection of geographical indications to products
other than wines and spirits, examination of the relationship between the TRIPS
Agreement and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the protection of
traditional knowledge and folklore and other relevant new developments would be
addressed by the TRIPS council as part of the implementation issues. Further, the
Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health is one of the most significant outcomes of
the Doha Conference. It recognises that the TRIPS Agreement can and should be
interpreted and implemented in a manner supportive of the WTO members’ right to
protect public health and to promote access to medicines for all.

WTO rules
The Declaration mandates negotiations aimed at clarifying and improving
disciplines under the Agreement on Implementation and Subsidies and Countervailing
Measures while preserving the basic concepts, principles and effectiveness of these

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Agreements and taking into account the needs of developing countries. It also
includes negotiations aimed at clarifying and improving disciplines and procedures
under the existing WTO provisions applying to regional trade agreement (keeping in
view the developmental aspects of these agreements). Negotiations are further
mandated on improvements and clarifications of the Dispute Settlement
Understanding. Addressing outstanding implementation issues on these subjects
would be an integral part of these negotiations.

Special and Differential Treatment (S&DT)

The negotiations shall fully take into account the principle of special and
differential treatment for developing countries. It has also been agreed to review all
special and differential provisions with a view to strengthening them and making
them more precise, effective and operational.

Electronic commerce
The work programme declares that members will maintain their current
practise of not imposing customs duties on electronic transmissions until the fifth
Ministerial Session.

Singapore issues
The issues relating to trade and investment, interaction between trade and
competition, transparency in government procurement and trade facilitation will
continue to be pursued in the Working Group Study process. Negotiation on these
subjects, according to the work programme will take place after the fifth session of
the Ministerial Conference on the basis of a decision to be taken, by explicit
consensus, at that session on modalities of negotiations.

Environment
Negotiations on limited aspects of trade and environment has been mandated,
along with instructions to the committee on Trade and Environment to pursue its work
on all items on its agenda, giving particular attention to the issues of market access,
the relevant provisions of the TRIPS Agreement and labelling.

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Labour
The declaration recognizes that ILO is the appropriate forum to address the
issue of core labour standards.

Working groups
The work programme has also set up two working groups. One group will
examine the relationship between Trade, Debt and Finance for suggesting solutions,
within the WTO mandate, to the problem of external indebtedness of developing
countries and to strengthen the coherence of the international trade and financial
policies, with a view to safeguarding the multilateral trading system from the effects
of financial and monetary instability. The other working group will examine the
relationship between trades and transfer of technology and to facilitate, within the
WTO mandate, increased flow of technology to developing countries.

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DOHA: TREATS AND OPPORTUNITIES

The Doha declaration approved by 142 countries at the fourth ministerial

Meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), ended in a consensus note because
all the countries especially the leaders the US, EU and Japan did not want collapse of
the multilateral global trading system as it happened in Seattle fiasco. It is explicit
consensus, which means that unless a country is in full agreement with the proposed
WTO declaration, it can opt out of discussion. This only helped the Doha meet,
however how will this operate is problematic.

The performance of the Indian team led by the feisty Mr Murasoli Maran, has
been commended wholeheartedly by the trade ministers of the developing countries
for sticking to the implementation issues of the Uruguay Round resulting in an extra
day of negotiations that the sixth day November 14, which was not in the agenda. The
10-page declaration adopted at the ministerial conference sets out the agenda for the
new round known as “Doha Development Agenda”. There will be as many as 19
subjects in the work programme.

India appears to achieved sizeable gains at eh WTO conference despite the

decision to go ahead with the development round of the trade negotiations. This
success in keeping out the four contentious “Singapore” issues of investment,
competition, government procurement and trade facilitation till the next conference
had been achieved by India amidst dire warnings of India’s isolation made initially by
developed countries like USA.

TRIPS
The major gains for India and other developing countries was the declaration
on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and public health
that would help greater access to medicines. The developing and least developing
countries can promote greater access to the patented medicines like AIDS and cancer
at cheap rates and India will be able to export its medicine for anthrax inspite being
patented by Bayer of Germany.

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Geographic Origin
India has been able to put the implementation issue of the WTO on a priority
basis. Similarly, other areas of success are in ensuring developed countries to commit
phasing out export subsidies on agriculture as well as talks on geographical
indications covering other products as basmati rice and not just wines and spirits like
champagne or scotch. The mandate is also to discuss the protection of traditional
knowledge and folklore, which will help the tribal and rural India.

Social Clause
Out of the social clause issue like environment and labour, it has not been
possible to prevent negotiations on environment, but the move to link labour has been
relegated to the earlier position of leaving it to International Labour Organisation
(ILO). This means that labour issue will never be raised in the future meetings with
WTO.

Textile and Clothing

There was no worthwhile commitment by the developed countries on the
further liberalisation of access for developing nations regarding export of textiles and
clothing. “The issue of anti-dumping provisions as neoprotectionist measures has
been now discipline and instruments currently in use by the US.”
The Confederation of India Industry (CII) has lauded the negotiating team for
ensuring that many of India’s key concerns were factored into final Doha Declaration
despite tremendous pressures from USA, EU and Japan. The Federation of Indian
Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) has expressed satisfaction at the
delegation for ensuring that the Indian position was vindicated on many issues.

Implementation Issues
A decision was supposed to be made on all the proposals made by the
developing countries, first in 1999, to address the difficulties and imbalances in the
1994 Uruguay Round like textiles, agricultural exports, and patent protection. Instead,
less important items – about 40 in number – involving mainly a “best endeavour
clause” have been settled. The only exception is an agreement by the rich countries
not to repeat an anti-dumping action on a country for the same product within a year

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of the previous being rejected. The practice of repeat investigations was a form of
harassment of the developing countries.

Agriculture
This was the most contentious issue among the developed economies with the
EU and Japan ranged against the US and agricultural exporters like Australia, where
negotiations had not made much progress since 2000. India had little problem on the
agenda for agriculture since it had earlier secured a reference to taking into account
“food security and rural development” concerns when negotiating market
liberalisation.

Services
The second issue what was mandated in 1995 for talks to begin in 2000 did
not see any disagreement. The Indian interest will be first and foremost in getting
agreement for more liberal provisions for the temporary migration of Indian technical
and non-technical workers to foreign markets.

Market Access for non-agricultural products

The central focus of the old GATT covers import duties on industrial products.
The negotiations will be both an opportunity and threat for India. The opportunities
will come from forcing the EU and the US to lower duties they impose on certain
products like sugar and in negotiating a reduction in duties they impose in those raw
materials remain low. The threat will be for India to reduce its high average duties
being the highest among most WTO countries.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Books:
India and World Trade Organisation: Planning and Development
– P. K. Vasudeva

Websites:
www.wto.org
www.indianembassy.org

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