This report identifies options that negotiators and policy-makers could pursue in order to reach a permanent solution at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to the problems some developing countries say they face when buying food at government-set (or government-administered) prices under their public stockholding programs for food security purposes. The …
Everybody keeps cribbing about the wto. What exactly is the problem with the institution? From the perspective of the South, the wto has three main problems. One, it is undemocratic and unpredictable. There are no formal processes of democratic decision-making, such as the majority rule. Decisions do not take place …
The first day of a multilateral conference involving most of the world’s nations is usually spent on procedural matters. So it was at Cancun, Mexico, where the Fifth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) was held from September 11 to September 14, 2003. After the usual ceremonial inauguration, …
At Cancun (“snakepit” in Spanish), it was widely expected that negotiations on agriculture would make or break the talks. However, delegates were quick to point to two other issues as equally damaging: (a) the manner in which the Cotton Initiative was methodically dismissed by the US; and (b) the poisonous …
What kind of ripples were let loose by the breakdown of talks? Celso Amorim, Brazil's minister of external relations and leader of the G-22 group, felt that the lack of engagement (of developing nations) in the Singapore issues, which mirrored the lack of engagement (of the developed world) on agriculture, …
There are worry lines all over the face of M K Bhojan, a small tea grower in the Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu. Tea prices have fallen cataclysmically in the last few years, affecting small farmers like Bhojan most acutely. In 1997-98, one kilogramme (kg) of green tea leaf fetched …
The proposed deal in Cancun had to be rejected. What was proposed at the World Trade Organization talks would have been a deadly price for developing countries to pay. Therefore, for once, our leaders did well. They were prepared to negotiate together. They held together in the face of the …
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Industry has demanded a complete ban on the import of second-hand cars and used tyres, in its report tabled in parliament. The panel feels that the country is being converted into a "dumping ground for second-hand cars, which is eating into the domestic (automobile) industry'. …
after nearly two years of negotiations, poor countries will finally have access to cheaper medicines following a deal clinched at the World Trade Organization (wto) in Geneva, Switzerland, on August 30, 2003. The agreement was aimed at establishing the modalities of how countries without domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity or with …
the doors of the World Trade Organization (wto) have been thrown open for Nepal. But not before the country staved off immense pressure from the North to join the International Union for Protection of New Varieties of Plants (upov). The upov is a global agreement that essentially protects the rights …
Last week, on a visit to the cold desert of Ladakh, I learnt something important. It made me see the ongoing agricultural negotiations at the World Trade Organization's meet in Cancun, Mexico in a different light. I learnt that what the industrialised world is doing to our agriculture, Punjab and …
In November 1999 during the World Trade Organization ministerial conference in Seattle I led the delegation from the United Kingdom. I was convinced the expansion of world trade could bring major benefits to developing countries and would be a key to tackle world poverty. For this, developing countries needed to …
In the early days of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (gatt), trade and environment related disputes were diplomatically resolved. Over the years, there developed a ‘rule based’ system. Under the present two-stage dispute settlement procedure under the wto, a finding of the dispute settlement panel
The Doha Ministerial Declaration, in paragraph 31(i), mandates negotiations on the relationship between existing wto rules and specific trade obligations (stos) set out in Multilateral Environmental Agreements (meas) that aim to make trade and environment more mutually supportive. How can this mandate be approached from a developing country perspective? First, …
negotiations on the crucial issue of agriculture intensified in the build-up to the Fifth World Trade Organization (wto) Ministerial Conference in Cancun, Mexico, with several developing countries joining hands to take on the formidable eu-us combine. The latter presented a joint paper on August 13 at the wto general council …
Indian non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have sought their inclusion in the country's official delegation to the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Cancun ministerial. The plea was jointly made by two NGOs
RECENTLY Arun Jaitley identified agriculture and investment as the two main issues for next month's World Trade Organization ministerial conference in Cancun, Mexico. (Jaitley is India's union minister of commerce and industry, and head of the Indian delegation to Cancun.) He isn't off target. The US, the world's largest agricultural …
The outcome of the fourth and final mini-ministerial before the Cancun conference in September was on predictable lines. No breakthrough was made on contentious issues regarding agricultural and non-agricultural products, investment, competition, transparency in government procurement and trade facilitation and, most importantly, development. The meeting, held from July 28 to …
The environmental industry is quite nebulously defined. Less a sector than an agglomeration of many kinds of goods, services and technologies, this us $550 billion industry is nevertheless on a growth roll. Especially in the developing world, where environmental regulation is becoming more stringent, and whose exports must match up …
Under the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (trips) Agreement of the World Trade Organization (wto), champagne is identified with the particular wine-producing region of France. Scotch whisky is similarly recognised as being purely Scottish. But products such as basmati rice, Darjeeling tea, Kolhapuri slippers and Kanchipuram silk saris
