SEE ALSO
Technical note: Participation in WTO plurilateral talks
Technical note: types of plurilateral deals and adding them to WTO rules
By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED JANUARY 3, 2022 | UPDATED APRIL 13, 2024
As World Trade Organization (WTO) members struggle to reach consensus on numerous issues, many see talks among “the willing” as the way to modernise the organisation and in many cases to update its trade rules. But the approach is controversial.
These talks and resulting decisions among only some WTO members are called “plurilateral” to distinguish them from “multilateral” activities and agreements among the WTO’s whole membership.
Continue reading or use these links to jump down the page or to find more information:
EXPLANATIONS
Present WTO plurilaterals explained (with jargon buster) | Not new | New type of mandate needed
THE 18 CURRENT PLURILATERALS
Plurilateral agreements from the 1986–94 Uruguay Round
1. Trade in civil aircraft (rules and MFN commitments) | 2. Government procurement (rules and non-MFN commitments) | 3. Pharmaceuticals Agreement (MFN commitments)
Plurilateral agreements since 1995
4. Services: movement of natural persons (MFN commitments) | 5. Services: basic telecommunications (MFN commitments) | 6. Financial services (MFN commitments) | 7. Information Technology [products] Agreement (MFN commitments)
Suspended plurilateral talks since 1995
8. Services: maritime transport (from 1995, suspended 1996) | 9. Environmental Goods Agreement (from 2014, stalled 2016)
Plurilateral (joint-statement) negotiations and discussions from 2017
10. Services: domestic regulation (joint-statement initiative (MFN commitments referencing rules. Agreement reached in 2021) | 11. E-commerce and digital trade (aim: rules and commitments, unclear whether MFN) | 12. Investment facilitation for development (aim: rules) | 13. Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) (discussion, recommendations, declarations) | 14. Gender equality and women in trade (discussion)
Plurilateral (joint-statement) discussions from 2021
15. Trade and environmental sustainability (structured discussion) | 16. Plastic pollution and environmentally sustainable trade (discussion) | 17. Fossil fuel subsidies (discussion for now; rules and commitments possible)
Dispute settlement
18. Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement (MPIA) (temporary procedures for appealing dispute rulings)
OTHER INFORMATION SOURCES
WTO website (sparse) | Geneva Trade Platform’s WTO Plurilaterals (by far the most comprehensive)
See also
Andrew Stoler, “Joint Statement Initiatives” and Progress in the WTO System, Adelaide University’s Institute for International Trade
L. Alan Winters and Bernard Hoekman, WTO reform: Plurilateral Agreements, UK Trade Policy Observatory
EXPLANATIONS
Present WTO plurilaterals explained
The purpose of plurilateral talks is not to exclude others, but to be able to go ahead while others are unready or reluctant. The hope is that everyone will eventually sign on, as has happened with several plurilaterals in the past.
JARGON BUSTER
Plurilateral — (in the WTO) an agreement or activity only among some WTO members. Contrasts with multilateral — involving the whole WTO membership
Schedules — lists of commitments and timetables for phasing them in. The commitments include reducing or scrapping tariffs and agricultural subsidies, and easing conditions for access to markets eg, for services and government procurement
Most-favoured-nation (MFN) treatment — non-discrimination between trading partners. For example, a country’s commitment to lower or scrap a tariff applies equally to all WTO members: they are all equally “most favoured”. This is the default in WTO rules
Non-MFN — discriminating in favour of one or more WTO members, and excluding some WTO members. If a country scraps duty only on imports from other participants in a plurilateral agreement, that is non-MFN
Open plurilateral — a plurilateral agreement that benefits all WTO members equally, including those that are not part of the agreement, ie, “MFN”, usually via “schedules” listing each country’s individual commitments
Closed plurilateral — a plurilateral agreement applying only among the participants, not the rest of the WTO’s membership, ie “non-MFN”. In particular, the commitments listed in “schedules”, such as duty-free imports, only apply to trade within the plurilateral group. Participation in the group is NOT closed. Other countries can negotiate to join
There are essentially two types of plurilateral activity now in the WTO:
- Agreements involving negotiations, either concluded or with conclusion intended in the future, with new rights and obligations.
- Discussions not necessarily leading to negotiations on new rights and obligations. The initial purpose is to clarify concepts and policy issues. They could lead to better understanding, and perhaps non-binding policy recommendations. Whether that leads to new rules can be discussed later.
On the controversy over inserting plurilaterals into the WTO rule-book, see:
Technical note: types of plurilateral deals and adding them to WTO rules
Not new
The list of plurilaterals shows they are not new. Andrew Stoler (a former US negotiator and deputy WTO director-general) argues they even date back to 1950s. One major round of negotiations from the 1970s resulted only in plurilateral agreements.
This was the 1973–75 Tokyo Round, negotiated under the WTO’s predecessor the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). It produced nine agreements (listed below), at that time called “codes” because only some GATT signatories agreed to apply the new rules.
Five of the Tokyo Round codes are now fully multilateral WTO agreements as a result of the 1986–94 Uruguay Round negotiations, which also created the WTO. Two are still plurilateral and remain in the package of WTO agreements. Two (on beef and dairy products) were temporarily plurilateral and were scrapped in 1997 as they transitioned into what was at that time two new sets of rules, the WTO agreements on agriculture and sanitary and phytosanitary measures (food safety, animal and plant health).
One new plurilateral agreement was negotiated and concluded in the Uruguay Round: on duty-free imports of pharmaceutical products.
Since the Uruguay Round agreements took effect in 1995, five new plurilateral agreements have been struck — six, if the two agreements on financial services are counted separately. All but one are in services. The exception is tariff-free trade in information technology products.
A number of other subjects are now being discussed plurilaterally, several of them a long way away from becoming proper negotiations to produce new rules. They are all the result of statements issued jointly by part of the WTO membership in 2017 and 2021. For this reason, they are also called “joint-statement initiatives (JSIs)”.
The WTO website is cautious about how it handles these plurilaterals and joint initiatives. Some topics have their own web pages; some do not, although the subjects are covered in WTO news stories.
The WTO clearly wants to promote members’ achievements in plurilateral activities, but hesitates to do it systematically, perhaps because of controversy among members.
India, South Africa and some other countries oppose the approach. They say plurilateral agreements violate the WTO’s multilateral nature, even though pluriaterals have been around in the system at least since the 1960s and 70s.
But these critics are a small minority of WTO members. By July 2023, the countries that had shunned the post-2017 plurilaterals were no more than 15 out of 164 WTO members, about 9%. Each of the remaining 149 members (91%) participated in at least one of these plurilaterals.
New type of mandate needed
Nevertheless, opposition from the dissenting countries means that the new plurilaterals differ from the older ones in a procedural way.
The older plurilaterals had multilateral mandates at the start, even if the the deals ended up as plurilateral because some countries could not sign up.
The mandates of the newer ones are plurilateral from the outset, and are not even recognised multilaterally. They are initiatives based entirely on the (plurilateral) joint statements.
THE 18 CURRENT PLURILATERALS
In total, 18 plurilateral agreements, negotiations, or discussions currently exist in the WTO. Two are suspended, meaning 16 are active to varying degrees. How they are handled in the WTO legal structure varies.
The numbers of participants here are correct at the time of writing. Participation can be fluid. The approach used is based on this technical note. These numbers may be updated periodically, but the most up-to-date information should be available via the links.
Plurilateral agreements from the 1986–94 Uruguay Round
Two are inherited and updated from the 1973–75 Tokyo Round. One came from the Uruguay Round itself.
1. TRADE IN CIVIL AIRCRAFT — 33 WTO members
● Agreement — Rules and non-discriminating (MFN) commitments, 1980; in the WTO 1994.
Eliminates import duties on all aircraft, other than military aircraft, as well as on all other products covered by the agreement — civil aircraft engines and their parts and components, all components and sub-assemblies of civil aircraft, and flight simulators and their parts and components.
The rules are under Annex 4 of the WTO Agreement; the schedules are attached to members’ commitments on goods under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). (See the chart above.)
● Legal stuff: Agreement text | Practice and jurisprudence | official documents (TCA/*)
2. GOVERNMENT PROCUREMENT — 49 WTO members
● Agreement — Rules and exclusive (non-MFN) commitments only applying to suppliers in other participating countries, 1979; in the WTO, updated 1994, 2012
Participants open their government procurement markets to each other for goods and services (including construction services). Non-participants are excluded. The agreement has two parts: rules (the text of the agreement) and participants’ (non-MFN) schedules of commitments on how much each has opened its procurement market to other participants. Both are inserted into the WTO Agreement via Annex 4 — the schedules are attached to the Government Procurement Agreement itself. (See the chart above.)
In addition to the 48 participating WTO members, 35 WTO members and observers are also observers in the Government Procurement Committee, 11 of the members negotiating to join the agreement.
● Legal stuff: 2012 agreement text | 2012 agreement and other related legal texts | Schedules of commitments | official documents (GPA/*) | notifications on national legislation | database
WTO website | Geneva Trade Platform’s WTO Plurilaterals website
3. PHARMACEUTICALS AGREEMENT — 35 WTO members
● Agreement — Non-discriminating (MFN) commitments, 1994, expanded 1996, 1998, 2007, 2010
Duty-free imports (tariffs, other duties and charges) for pharmaceutical products and the substances used to produce them. This is permanently “bound” legally in the WTO through non-discriminating (MFN) schedules of commitments on goods, attached to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). (See the chart above.)
Originally negotiated in the 1986–94 Uruguay Round, the commitments are only made by Canada, the EU, Japan, Macao, Norway, Switzerland, the UK and the US.
Officially this is the 1994 Agreement on Trade in Pharmaceutical Products (the Pharmaceutical Agreement, the Pharma Agreement). It used to be called a “zero-for-zero” agreement, which is misleading because it implies reciprocity whereas the deal is non-discriminatory. “Zero-for-zero” could be interpreted as requiring a critical mass of participants.
The WTO Secretariat has compiled an “indicative” list of covered products: part 1 (pdf), part 2 (pdf), part 3 (Excel spreadsheet).
● Legal stuff: 1994 text and clarification | Updates 1996 (and annexed database file), 1998 (and annexed Zip file), 2007 (details not available), 2010 (details not available) | official documents — all market access (goods) documents G/MA/*; market access working documents G/MA/W/* | tariff databases
Plurilateral agreements since 1995
All but one of these are in services. The ones from the 1990s were unfinished business from the multilateral Uruguay Round. So, in a sense, was the 2021 services domestic regulation deal, except the mandate was new and plurilateral
4. SERVICES PROTOCOL: MOVEMENT OF NATURAL PERSONS — 21 WTO members
● Agreement — Non-discriminating (MFN) commitments, 1995
Further improvements on commitments made in the Uruguay Round, mostly providing access opportunities for independent foreign professionals, in a number of business sectors and extend the permitted duration of stay.
The upgraded commitments are attached to the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) via a legal document called a “protocol” (one of four post-1994 services protocols), which entered into force on January 30, 1996. (See the chart above.)
The only participants were: Australia, Canada, the then EU-15 (ie 16 WTO members), India, Norway and Switzerland.
Whether these “protocol” agreements in services are “plurilateral” is also debatable. Only some WTO members had schedules of specific commitments in services at the end of the (multilateral) Uruguay Round and one reason for these negotiations was to increase the number. However there were improvements in content as well, which can justify describing them as “plurilateral”.
● Legal stuff: Mandate — 1994 multilateral ministerial decision | Third Protocol (where the schedules are attached) | official documents (on services as a whole, S/*)
5. SERVICES PROTOCOL: BASIC TELECOMMUNICATIONS — 69 WTO members
● Agreement — Non-discriminating (MFN) commitments, linked to rules in a “Reference Paper”, 1997
The Uruguay Round commitments in telecommunications were mainly on value-added services. The new commitments in 1997 were on basic services. Like all services commitments, they are attached to the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) via a protocol (one of four post-1994 services protocols), and are applied equally to all WTO members (MFN). (See the chart above.)
These negotiations also resulted in a Reference Paper, a set of rules or regulatory principles on basic telecommunications, for participants to consider adopting in their schedules of commitments. These included competition safeguards, interconnection guarantees, transparent licensing processes, and the independence of regulators. The Reference Paper is not an official WTO document.
“By the February 1997 deadline, 63 of the 69 governments submitting schedules included commitments on regulatory disciplines, with 57 of these committing to the Reference Paper in whole or with a few modifications,” this WTO explanation says.
See “movement of natural persons” (above) on how these talks are plurilateral — the fact that these are commitments in basic telecommunications also makes them new.
● Legal stuff: Mandate — 1994 multilateral ministerial decision | Reference Paper | Fourth Protocol (where the schedules are attached) | Schedules | official documents (on services as a whole, S/*)
6. SERVICES PROTOCOL: FINANCIAL SERVICES — 45 (1995), 52 (1997) WTO members
● Agreement — Non-discriminating (MFN) commitments, 1995, 1997
Further improvements on commitments made in the Uruguay Round, both on access to financial services markets and on exemptions from non-discrimination (MFN). The numbers of participants is complicated because countries that initially agreed might not have ratified the protocols — the legal texts used to attach the schedules to the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). (See the chart above.) Two of the four post-1994 services protocols are on financial services.
See “movement of natural persons” (above) on how these talks are plurilateral. Details are here and in this press release.
● Legal stuff: Mandate — 1994 multilateral ministerial decision | Protocols (where the schedules are attached): Second (1995), Fifth (1997) | official documents (on services as a whole, S/*)
7. INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY [PRODUCTS] AGREEMENT — 82 WTO members
● Agreement — Non-discriminating (MFN) commitments, 1996, 2015
Duty-free trade in information technology products, originally agreed in 1996, expanded in 2015, and explained here. One of the issues is how to determine which products are in this category when they could have many different uses. Duty-free trade is achieved legally by adding new schedules of commitments on tariffs under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). (See the chart above.) The agreements were announced in non-binding ministerial declarations.
● Legal stuff: 1996 Ministerial Declaration | Schedules | Implementation status (searches WTO documents online) | official documents (G/IT/*)
Suspended plurilateral talks since 1995
8. SERVICES: MARITIME TRANSPORT
● Negotiation — Presumably Non-discriminating (MFN) commitments. From 1995, suspended 1996
This was the fourth heading under services where WTO members had agreed to continue with unfinished business at the end of the Uruguay Round. They had set a deadline of June 1996 but there was no agreement and the talks were suspended. If agreement had been reached, the legal route would probably have been the same as the other services protocols and schedules of commitments.
The subject then became part of the broader services negotiations that began in 2000, but these have failed to conclude.
See “movement of natural persons” (above) on how these talks are plurilateral.
● Legal stuff: Mandate — 1994 multilateral ministerial decision | official documents (on services as a whole, S/*)
9. ENVIRONMENTAL GOODS AGREEMENT — 46 WTO members
● Negotiation — Non-discriminating (MFN) commitments. From 2014, stalled 2016
The objective is or was duty-free trade on important environmental goods. Participants have not said on-the-record why the talks stalled. Among the sticking points was said to be the question of which products can be considered important environmental goods.
If concluded, the legal route might have been similar to the Information Technology Agreement, with new schedules of commitments on tariffs.
● Legal stuff: there are no official or legal documents on these talks, only three WTO news stories from 2014, 2015 and 2016, the last one still strangely optimistic.
WTO website | Geneva Trade Platform’s WTO Plurilaterals website
Plurilateral (joint-statement) negotiations and discussions from 2017
Launched at the Buenos Aires Ministerial Conference
10. SERVICES: DOMESTIC REGULATION (2017 joint-statement initiative) — 71 WTO members
● Agreement(2021) — Non-discriminating (MFN) commitments, incorporating rules, 2021 (“schedules” of commitments still to be officially confirmed), 2024 (some schedules certified)
New disciplines to help services trade flow more easily and to reduce unintended trade-restrictions resulting from licensing requirements and procedures, qualification requirements and procedures, and technical standards and other measures.
The plurilateral negotiations were launched in 2017 following decades failure of multilateral talks on domestic regulation. Plurilateral agreement was reached in 2021. It is given legal force through schedules of commitments by the participants attached to the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). (See the chart above.)
New rules are included but not as a formal text. Instead, a “reference paper” was agreed (similar to the method used in the financial services talk in the late 1990s, but an official WTO document), and the schedules include commitments to comply with the reference paper. The commitments (including the rules) are applied equally to all WTO members including non-participants (MFN).
From December 2022, participants started circulating their draft new (actually “revised” or “modified”) schedules of commitments. On February 3, 2023 — 45 days after the first batch were circulated — India and South Africa announced they had reservations, effectively blocking or delaying certification to confirm that the new commitments are fully legal. The implications are discussed here.
In February 2024, India and South Africa dropped their objections to the schedules of commitments in services of 53 WTO members who incorporated new plurilateral disciplines on services domestic regulation. The objections were dropped after those members modified their proposed documents. Certifying services schedules has its own rules, meaning that blocking certification endlessly is difficult.
The schedules of 17 other participants still had not been certified.
● Legal stuff: Mandate — 2017 ministerial (plurilateral) joint statement | Concluding declaration and reference paper | Schedules — not yet available publicly, but listed here with updates here | official documents (on services as a whole, S/*)
WTO website | Geneva Trade Platform’s WTO Plurilaterals website
11. E-COMMERCE AND DIGITAL TRADE — 90 WTO members
● Negotiation — aiming for new rules and commitments. Unclear whether commitments are MFN or not.
Six main themes: enabling electronic commerce, openness and electronic commerce, trust and digital trade, cross-cutting issues, telecommunications, and market access. The result would be both new rules and new schedules of commitments.
At this stage it is unclear and perhaps undecided how the outcome would be applied in practice and whether the intention is to apply the commitments equally to all WTO members (MFN) or to aim for something like the Government Procurement Agreement. (See the chart above.) Leaked early drafts (up to 2023, links below) say: “This working document does not prejudice the final legal framework which will give effect to each provision.”
Ines Willemyns discusses the relationship between the January 2024 e-commerce draft and the WTO Agreement here.
In October 2023, the US announced it was withdrawing its “proposals and attributions on data flows, data localization, and source code” while it consults internally on its approach to these “sensitive areas”. (See a fuller explanation and comment on the International Economic Law and Policy Blog and Sam Lowe’s account of the domestic politics behind the US move.)
(Not to be confused with multilateral WTO work — involving the whole membership — on electronic commerce: the 1998 work programme and the decision not to charge customs duties on electronic transmissions for a limited period, so far always extended, known as the “moratorium”.)
● Legal stuff: Mandate — 2017 ministerial (plurilateral) joint statement | Actual launch — 2019 joint statement | Draft text (Jan 2024, leaked, 28 pages) | Draft text (2023, 79 pages) | Draft text (leaked, 2020, 90 pages) | official documents (INF/ECOM/*)
WTO website | Geneva Trade Platform’s WTO Plurilaterals website
12. INVESTMENT FACILITATION FOR DEVELOPMENT — 128 WTO members
● Negotiation — new rules but no new market access commitments
Things moved fast and sometimes in conflicting directions at the February 26–29, 2024 Ministerial Conference in Abu Dhabi.
On February 25, 2024, the eve of the conference, participants published their agreement. It was attached to a joint ministerial declaration calling for the agreement to be added to the package of WTO agreements (under Annex 4 of the WTO Agreement), which would require consensus among all WTO members.
The participants did not (yet) say when and where they proposed inserting their deal into WTO rules. Their declaration simply said they would continue outreach to encourage other WTO members to “support and consider joining” the agreement.
Three days later, India announced it opposed an Abu Dhabi ministerial decision to attach the investment facilitation deal simply on the grounds there was no consensus. (Previously, India had called the Investment Facilitation Agreement illegal.) Speculation that South Africa would issue an identical statement did not materialise.
The following day, February 29, ministers received a confidential draft from plurilateral talks’ coordinators — Chile and South Korea — proposing something different: that after the Ministerial Council, the General Council should start discussions on adding the deal to the WTO Agreement.
That changed a few hours later, when the participants formally proposed attaching the deal to the WTO Agreement at this Ministerial Conference in Abu Dhabi. (By now the group was 123 WTO members, rising to 124 the following day.)
India repeated its opposition on March 1.
In the end there was no decision and it will be up to participants to pursue insertion in Geneva.
All of this followed participants’ confirmation in December 2023 that they had an agreed and legally polished text on the proposed new rules. They said they were discussing with non-participants their desire to add the deal to WTO agreements by the Ministerial Conference.
In the year-end General Council meeting India alone said it opposed adding any new plurilateral agreement to the WTO rule-book. Over 30 delegations supported adding investment facilitation, including non-participants such as the US.
As early as July 6, 2023 participants said they had completed their negotiations, although further work was needed to discuss how to add the deal to the WTO agreements (see below), and to tweak their current draft to reflect that. (See also the WTO website’s news story and the coordinators’ paper.)
Their preference would be to encourage the rest of the membership to sign up. That would allow the deal to become a proper multilateral WTO agreement by consensus.
They admitted defeat on the “multilateral” option when they met on October 11–13, 2023, and focused on a stand-alone plurilateral agreement attached to the WTO Agreement (Annex 4). Because consensus was needed to do that, they said they would continue their outreach to non-participants. The “plurilateral” option would create no new obligations on non-participants and would not discriminate against them, the participants said.
The aim is to “improve the investment and business climate, and make it easier for investors in all sectors of the economy to invest, conduct their day-to-day business and expand their operations”, the WTO says. It would include helping developing and least-developed countries participate more in global investment flows.
“The initiative does not cover market access, investment protection and investor-state dispute settlement.”
The text’s approach is similar to the Trade Facilitation Agreement with a focus on transparency, predictability and streamlined procedures (see this 41-page explanation). New in the WTO are provisions on responsible business and measures against corruption. As with Trade Facilitation, developing countries would be able to choose whether to implement almost immediately, after a transition, or after a transition on condition that they receive aid.
Without market access commitments there will be no schedules of commitments, meaning participants cannot bypass the need for consensus by simply attaching the text unilaterally to existing commitments, as happened with domestic regulation in services.
In any case, the only possible routes of attaching schedules would be under services (which does not cover all types of investment) or under Annex 4 (plurilateral agreements), which probably requires WTO-wide consensus even if the agreement is plurilateral. (See the chart above.)
Some of the key elements such as transparency would rely on work in a new Investment Facilitation Committee (see draft, Article 39) open to all WTO members, and reporting to the General Council. Creating this committee would require a consensus decision among the full membership.
In this latest phase, participants settled the question of non-discrimination (most-favoured nation treatment, Article 5). Each signatory would treat participants and non-participants (if there are any) equally. Non-participants would be free riders but would not be able to litigate under WTO dispute settlement if discrimination is suspected.
Hamid Mamdouh has proposed creating a new Annex 5 as an alternative legal approach, but a consensus among WTO members would be needed to do this.
Initiated by some developing countries and with such a large number of them participating (including China), only a few — including India and South Africa — would be left to block consensus (if they wanted to) on attaching the deal under Annex 4 or creating a new Annex 5. The US is also a non-participant.
● Legal stuff: Mandate — 2017 ministerial (plurilateral) joint statement | 2021 statement on concluding in 2022 based on the latest draft | the drafts — not available publicly | But the July 6, 2023 near-final draft is here and the November 2022 version of the “Easter Text” is here | summaries of meetings (public) | official documents (INF/IFD/*)
WTO website | Geneva Trade Platform’s WTO Plurilaterals website
13. MICRO, SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED ENTERPRISES (MSMEs) — 99 WTO members
● Discussion — so far producing recommendations and declarations
An informal working group is exploring ways in which WTO members could better support smaller enterprises’ participation in global trade.
For now at least, participants do not envisage new rules or commitments. They have produced recommendations and declarations on compiling information and access to it (including to a WTO database), making trade easier for smaller companies and helping them participate in developing regulations, and on access to trade finance.
The group has a number of other activities.
● Legal stuff: Mandate — 2017 ministerial (plurilateral) joint statement | 2021 package of recommendations and declarations | 2021 draft ministerial (plurilateral) declaration | official documents (INF/MSME/*)
WTO website | Geneva Trade Platform’s WTO Plurilaterals website
14. GENDER EQUALITY AND WOMEN IN TRADE — 128 WTO members (excluding observers)
● Discussion — analysis, sharing experiences, input for aid-for-trade activities
The official drive to improve women’s role in trade was launched at the 2017 Ministerial Conference in Buenos Aires. Various activities developed, many by the WTO Secretariat. It was not until September 2020 that a working group was set up. It has 127 WTO members and observers. Full details are here.
● Legal stuff: Mandate — 2017 ministerial (plurilateral) joint declaration | 2021 draft ministerial (plurilateral) declaration | official documents (INF/TGE/*)
WTO website | Geneva Trade Platform’s WTO Plurilaterals website
Plurilateral (joint-statement) discussions from 2021
Originally intended to be launched at the Geneva Ministerial Conference, which was postponed. The statements were issued anyway
15. TRADE AND ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY STRUCTURED DISCUSSIONS — 76 WTO members
● Discussion
The big question is why this cannot be done in the WTO-wide Trade and Environment Committee. At the launch, less than half of the membership were prepared to participate in these discussions. (A second quirk is the need to say “structured” as if discussions in the WTO are generally unstructured.)
The aim is to produce “actions and deliverables” on trade that contribute to sustainability and tackling climate change. The actions envisaged are not (at this stage) new rules or commitments, but non-binding recommendations and best practices, in a range of relevant subjects. Transparency, sharing information and cooperation with other international organisations also feature.
More specifically, by July 2023 participants were considering reports for the February 2024 Ministerial Conference on:
- solar, wind and hydro energy sectors — an analytical summary describing goods and services that are key, the barriers to their dissemination, issues faced by developing countries, and how to boost trade in these goods and services
- climate — how members have developed trade-related climate measures, including on transparency and consultation, impact assessments and guiding principles;
- circular economy — mapping the trade aspects along the lifecycle of products
- subsidy design — members’ experiences compiled.
Details are on the WTO webpage for this topic, its news stories, and (unusually) in meeting reports issued publicly as soon as they are circulated to members (document series INF/TE/SSD/R/*).
● Legal stuff: Mandate — 2021 draft (plurilateral) ministerial declaration | official documents (INF/TE/SSD/*)
WTO website | Geneva Trade Platform’s WTO Plurilaterals website
16. PLASTICS: INFORMAL DIALOGUE ON PLASTIC POLLUTION AND ENVIRONMENTALLY SUSTAINABLE TRADE — 79 WTO members
● Discussion — “Informal dialogue”
Actually launched in 2020 but with a declaration prepared for ministers in 2021. The aim is to explore how the WTO could contribute to efforts to reduce plastics pollution and promote the transition to more environmentally sustainable trade in plastics.
Details include: improving transparency and monitoring trade trends (an initial focus); promoting best practices; strengthening policy coherence; identifying the scope for collective approaches; assessing capacity and technical assistance needs; and cooperating with other international processes and efforts. For now (at least) no new rules or commitments are discussed.
The group keeps the Trade and Environment Committee informed and encourages others to join.
Meanwhile in 2022 the UN set up an International Negotiating Committee (“INC” in official texts) to develop by the end of 2024 (extendable to 2025), a legally binding agreement on tackling plastic pollution. The WTO’s informal dialogue now aims to support that.
A first “skeleton” draft of a text for the 2024 (13th) Ministerial Conference was circulated and discussed in a meeting on May 25, 2023. It aimed for “concrete, pragmatic, and effective outcomes” in 2024 under the mandate agreed at the 2022 conference.
The draft contains a range of issues grouped as “visions” and “priorities”, including cooperation with the World Customs Organization and supporting the disciplines negotiated by the UN committee. It covers transparency, technical assistance, helping small island developing states and least-developed countries, and promoting practices that curb plastic pollution.
Binding rules in the WTO are not included, only in the UN. As drafted, nothing would be subject to WTO dispute settlement.
By 2023 the dialogue had five coordinators: Australia, Barbados, China, Ecuador and Morocco. Morocco and China chaired the May 25 meeting.
● Legal stuff: Mandate — 2020 (plurilateral) communication | Mandate updated — 2021 draft (plurilateral) ministerial declaration (adopted) | official documents (INF/TE/IDP/*)
WTO website | Geneva Trade Platform’s WTO Plurilaterals website
17. FOSSIL FUEL SUBSIDIES — 48 WTO members
● Discussion — for now, although the aim of phasing out subsidies suggests negotiating rules or commitments. Sometimes, but not always, called “fossil fuel subsidy reform (FFSR)”
Phasing out “inefficient” fossil fuel subsidies, which encourage wasteful consumption and disadvantage renewable energy, taking into account the needs of developing countries.
Several observers have questioned the meaning of “inefficient” here.
The first ministerial statement was actually in 2017, but since then, until December 2021, there were no official WTO meetings and no proposals from participants or other documents — although New Zealand and other participants reportedly rallied support from more members.
For a while, the question of whether the 2017 statement initiated anything was moot. This was mainly because no activity resulted from it. It was also partly because the statement was broad and brief, and less specific than the other 2017 joint-statements in specifying activities in the WTO that might result.
The 2021 statement is more specific in saying what the participants “will” do (rather than “seek”). The talks seem to have become more active in 2023.
Apparently for all those reasons, the WTO website calls this a “new” initiative.
● Legal stuff: Mandate — 2021 draft (plurilateral) ministerial statement (original 2017 ministerial statement) | official documents INF/TE/FFSR/* | meeting minutes or summary reports INF/TE/FFSR/R/*
WTO website | Geneva Trade Platform’s WTO Plurilaterals website
Dispute settlement
This is not usually counted among plurilaterals and joint-statement initiatives. But it is a deal among only some WTO members, specifically to allow dispute rulings to be appealed while the Appellate Body is unable to function, and is therefore (rightly) included on the Geneva Trade Platform’s WTO Plurilaterals website
18. MULTI-PARTY INTERIM APPEAL ARBITRATION ARRANGEMENT (MPIA) — 53 WTO members
● Agreement — alternative legal procedures agreed in 2020, only applies among participants
PARTICIPANTS
Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement (MPIA)
March 10, 2023
Australia, Austria, Belgium, Benin, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus Rep, Czechia, Denmark, Ecuador, Estonia, EU, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Japan, Macao, Malta, Mexico, Montenegro, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, Uruguay (53)
The original 46 members are listed here. Others as linked
Details are here
With the Appellate Body unable to function, some members still want to be able to appeal first-stage legal rulings by WTO dispute settlement panels. They have agreed to use dispute-settlement rules on arbitration as an alternative route until the Appellate Body can function again. This route has weaker legal implications than proper appeals because the results are not formally adopted by the WTO’s membership (in the Dispute Settlement Body).
Potential arbitrators were appointed in August 2020. But so far, no disputes have reached the stage yet where this procedure might be used.
This comes under existing WTO rules on arbitration (Article 25 of the Dispute Settlement Understanding, Annex 2 in the chart above), with details in a 7-page statement and agreed procedures issued by the participants.
The first WTO dispute to use appeal-by-arbitration was about Türkiye’s policies to protect local pharmaceutical products, one of a pair of cases under a bilateral agreement with the EU that is separate from the multi-party arrangement but very similar. Details of the bilateral agreement for both cases are here.
On October 6, 2022, Colombia appealed by arbitration in a case brought by the EU on anti-dumping measures against some European products (case DS591). The arbitration award was issued on December 19, 2022. Full details are here.
On April 13, 2023, Japan and China announced they would use the arrangement in dispute DS601.
Geneva Trade Platform’s WTO Plurilaterals website keeps a tally of cases appealed by arbitration and those brought against each other by participants in the arrangement.
● Legal stuff: Mandate — plurilateral statement | referring to Article 25 of the Dispute Settlement Understanding | official documents — all versions of the statement (JOB/DSB/1/*)
More information | WTO website | Geneva Trade Platform’s WTO Plurilaterals website
The Tokyo Round ‘codes’
- Subsidies and countervailing measures: interpreting GATT Articles 6, 16 and 23 — now a fully multilateral WTO agreement
- Technical barriers to trade: sometimes called the Standards Code — now a fully multilateral WTO agreement
- Import licensing procedures — now a fully multilateral WTO agreement
- Customs valuation: interpreting GATT Article 7 — now a fully multilateral WTO agreement
- Anti-dumping: interpreting GATT Article 6, replacing the 1964–67 Kennedy Round code — now a fully multilateral WTO agreement
- Trade in Civil Aircraft — now a WTO plurilateral agreement
- Government procurement — now a WTO plurilateral agreement
- [International Dairy Agreement — became a WTO plurilateral agreement — terminated in 1997]
- [Bovine Meat Agreement — became a WTO plurilateral agreement — terminated in 1997]
See “Pre-WTO legal texts”
More on WTO decision-making, consensus and voting
Updates:
2024
April 13, 2024 — updating several out of date participation numbers, checked against this technical note and the WTO website
March 26, 2024 — updating services domestic regulation reflecting certification of some participants’ schedules of commitments
March 20 and 22, 2024 — updating participation in investment facilitation, micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs)
March 9, 2024 — updating participation in “gender equality”
February 26–March 2, 2024 — adding and updating the paragraphs on what happened at the Abu Dhabi Ministerial Conference
February 9–11, 2024 — updating the e-commerce section, including the leaked January 2024 draft; updating participants in environmental sustainability discussions (TESSD); adding links to an explanation and the text for investment facilitation
January 24, 2024 — adding links to search for documents on fossil fuel subsidies
January 3, 2024 — removing the section on adding plurilaterals to the rule-book and replacing it with a link to the new technical note on the subject
2023
November 2, 2023 — adding the link to the meeting summaries, environmental sustainability discussions (TESSD)
October 31–November 1, 2023 — updating participation and content for e-commerce
October 16, 2023 — updating participation in investment facilitation
July 14, 2023 — updating participation in fossil fuel subsidies
July 13, 2023 — updating trade and environmental sustainability participation and content
July 9, 2023 — updating participation in the e-commerce talks, and participation/non-participation in all plurilaterals
July 6–8, 2023 — updating investment facilitation to reflect near final draft
May 26, 2023 — updating the plastics pollution section
April 13, 21 2023 — updating the sections on investment facilitation, the Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement and on plastics
March 1, 2023 — adding the “Easter Text” to the section on investment facilitation
February 11, 2023 — updating the services domestic regulation section: reservations from India and South Africa, with a link to the page on implications
2022
October 13, 2022 — updating participation in the dialogue on plastics pollution
August 31, 2022 — under No 18 (MPIA), adding the link to the article on the Türkiye-EU agreement on appealing by arbitration
March 24, 2022 — updating and correcting micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs)
February 24, 2022 — adding the distinction between plurilateral and multilateral work on e-commerce in the WTO
February 4, 2022 — adding new search link for documents on fossil fuel subsidy reform
January 18–27, 2022 — adding the Uruguay Round “zero-for-zero” pharmaceuticals agreement, and a link to the Winters-Hoekman paper, which includes it; adding more on the legal basis of the interim arbitration arrangement in dispute settlement; minor edits, typo corrections and some new hyperlinks
January 10, 2022 — adding: links to and quotes from Andrew Stoler’s paper; termination dates (1997) and documents for the dairy and beef plurilaterals; Hamid Mamdouh’s proposal for an Annex 5
January 5–9, 2022 — adding the jargon buster box and more links to the WTO page containing the legal texts and services protocols
January 4, 2022 — adding links to official documents for each plurilateral, clarifying that there were no meetings or documents on fossil fuel subsidies resulting from the 2017 statement
January 3, 2022 — adding 2017 statement under fossil fuel subsidies
October 13, 2022 — updating participation in the dialogue on plastics pollution
August 31, 2022 — under No 18 (MPIA), adding the link to the article on the Türkiye-EU agreement on appealing by arbitration
March 24, 2022 — updating and correcting micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs)
February 24, 2022 — adding the distinction between plurilateral and multilateral work on e-commerce in the WTO
February 4, 2022 — adding new search link for documents on fossil fuel subsidy reform
January 18–27, 2022 — adding the Uruguay Round “zero-for-zero” pharmaceuticals agreement, and a link to the Winters-Hoekman paper, which includes it; adding more on the legal basis of the interim arbitration arrangement in dispute settlement; minor edits, typo corrections and some new hyperlinks
January 10, 2022 — adding: links to and quotes from Andrew Stoler’s paper; termination dates (1997) and documents for the dairy and beef plurilaterals; Hamid Mamdouh’s proposal for an Annex 5
January 5–9, 2022 — adding the jargon buster box and more links to the WTO page containing the legal texts and services protocols
January 4, 2022 — adding links to official documents for each plurilateral, clarifying that there were no meetings or documents on fossil fuel subsidies resulting from the 2017 statement
January 3, 2022 — adding 2017 statement under fossil fuel subsidies
Image credits:
Book cover | WTO
Featured image and section separator backgrounds | Rodnae Productions, Pexels licence
Other photos and charts | Peter Ungphakorn, CC BY 2.0
Trade β Blog 