The embattled WTO Doha Round of global trade talks is not going anywhere, by the latest news reports. The just-ended set of negotiations, with Brazil and India ranged against the EU and US on the latter’s farm subsidies, have failed to break the impasse. Also, the US President could soon lose his “fast-track” authority from Congress for trade promotion. Without this prior-approval power from this American legislative organ, other countries would not have the confidence that what the US representatives offer as part of the Doha Round negotiations will actually be endorsed by Congress. If the US somehow still manages a last-minute breakthrough deal before June 30—all is not lost yet—then President George W Bush can ask for a renewed fast-track mandate. If not, it may be time to lay the Doha Round to rest.
The latest breakdown of talks, in the context of the Doha Round’s background, indicates that little is likely to happen by June 30. But there are bigger issues at stake here than deadlines and deal-signing—issues such as development, human rights and poverty.
There is no greater challenge to global rule-makers in trade than addressing how international trade flows can help narrow the staggering gap between the rich and the poor. No stable global prosperity is possible without major action to change the course of this widening divide. In fact, when the WTO Doha Round was launched in late 2001, governments proclaimed it as the “Doha Development Agenda” (DDA), pledging action that would put the priorities of development and the concerns of developing countries at the heart of global trade rules. Some 25 controversial WTO agreements were to be discussed to resolve such sticky issues as agricultural subsidies and market access. The DDA was meant to both redress the failures of previous WTO agreements to meet the needs of poor countries, and to formulate new rules that would better allow governments to meet development objectives.
To live a dignified life, everyone in the world must have access to food, health and employment, and have the right to express one’s views freely. Trade issues, however arcane and distant they seem, have a major impact on the prospects for achieving such development goals. The WTO’s existing trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (Trips) agreement, for example, puts onerous burdens on developing countries, raising the cost of consumer products such as medicines. In Thailand, health groups campaigned last year against the patenting of Combid, a key anti-retroviral drug on which Thais infected with HIV/AIDS depend. The patented price of Combid was $207 for a month’s course, while the generic version produced by a Thai state agency costs less than $40 a month. These are serious public health issues, and many countries are reluctant to abide by global rules on these.
On the other hand, the WTO’s Agreement on Agriculture has allowed developed countries to maintain high protection in this sector while requiring developing countries to liberalise their food imports, at the expense of food security and the livelihoods of the world’s poorest farmers. In Ghana, the livelihoods of 250,000 chicken farmers are under threat from the onslaught of cheap frozen chicken parts arriving from Europe. Commercial chicken farms and hatcheries in Ghana that employ almost 10,000 people are laying off workers. Yet, WTO rules won’t let Ghana’s protect its farmers with tariffs.
India, with a farmer population of 670 million, cannot ignore the effects of globalisation. While food security and food safety seem like distant worries of the post-independence era, they continue to call for top-level attention in the trade context. Trade-distorting subsidies in the EU and US remain a huge headache. We need a WTO breakthrough quite urgently.
No comments:
Post a Comment