Lobbying for A New Round

As of Day 2 of the 4th WTO Ministerial, country delegations in Doha are still divided on whether or not to launch a new round of multilateral trade negotiations. A large number of developing countries led by the ACP remain opposed to a new round and instead want long-standing issues about implementation and imbalances to be resolved. Speeches made at the Opening Plenary last night quite obviously avoided using the term "new round". Instead they spoke of "new issues" that need to be addressed or "new negotations" that need to take place through working groups or committees. The Qatari Trade Minister quite explicitly said that "Singapore issues on investment and competition could be moved to 5th Ministerial although talks on other issues could get started" at the this meeting.

QUAD countries are desperate to get a consensus on a new round. So desperate in fact that they had resorted to more intensified muscle-flexing and deal-making. It is no secret, for instance, that Washington had hosted last week several African trade ministers who were enroute to Doha. In an Africa meeting held yesterday, the EU had asked the "African countries to harmonize their position with those of Latin America and Asia." Apparently the CAIRNS group to which many Latin American and Asian countries belong had become quite happy with new concessional promises in the agriculture front and that their upbeat mood had been interpreted to mean that they too are in favor of a new round. At least one country delegation in the CAIRNS group that is closely allied with the United States, the Philippines, has come to Doha with a position of supporting a new round.

A new round is something that a global network of NGOs including women's networks such as DAWN, IGTN, CAFRA and GERA have been opposing. They are supporting the position of many developing countries for the WTO to address long-standing issues before new issues are tabled for discussion. The NGOs have become very anxious that the limited voice and access to negotiators given them in this tightly secured conference compound would hamper their information support to delegations of developing countries and ongoing monitoring of negotiations. There is also concern over the lobbying activities of the corporate sector some of whose representatives have been given the designation of "government observer." 

However, in today's ongoing morning plenary, explicit references to a New Round were spoken one after another by several trade ministers including from Singapore, Switzerland, USA, EC, and the EU. All of the speakers had expressed one or another concession on TRIPs particularly regarding public health, and the E U invoked delegates to observe maximum "flexibility". The EU moreover spoke of DMJ linkages, referring to Doha, Monterrey and Johannesburg. By tomorrow countries that are opposed to a new round will take the floor. (Mariama Williams IGTN/DAWN was one of a very few NGOs inside the plenary hall this morning. At some point, security forces asked them to leave but were left unbothered when they on staying.)

Some NGOs this early have denounced the WTO 4th Ministerial as the "Sale of the Century" (Friends of the Earth), and equating the possible success of the Meeting to a "failure of democracy". Most NGOs agree with government pronouncements on the need for important things to happen to enable a global response to the changed economic climate after Sept 11. However, NGOs feel that instead of taking up the opportunity to address fundamental and long-standing issues, the push for a new round is only compounding problems.

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