See also
WTO members achieve breakthrough, but the tough part is what happens next | The successful WTO Conference saw one big failure: agriculture | Have we just seen the funeral of the WTO ‘single undertaking’?
By Robert Wolfe and Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED JUNE 19, 2022 | UPDATED JUNE 20, 2022
In our curtain-raiser before the June 12–17 World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference — “Touch and go at the WTO. Is the director-general’s optimism justified?” — we suggested a set of score cards for assessing the result. Based on the actual outcome, we’ve adjusted the scorecards slightly and filled them in.
This is a bit of fun, not to be taken too seriously, although it will help us as we prepare a proper wrap-up assessment of the conference, which ended late, after two consecutive all-night sessions at the WTO headquarters.
In that spirit we invite you to comment, either through the contact form, or even better by replying to us on Twitter, particularly replying to the tweet that announces this is published.
For the plurilateral or joint-statement initiatives, this is what we wrote in the curtain-raiser about a complication arising from the war in Ukraine. It is relevant:
“If the rumours are right, some documents that were ready to go in November 2021, have now had the names of sponsoring countries removed so that they do not appear alongside Russia. The texts would be demoted to summary statements from the talks’ coordinators.
“According to the rumours, this would be the case for the talks on micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), and on trade and gender. (On June 10 and June 12, the MSME report and trade and gender statement were circulated and they were indeed issued by the coordinator(s).)
“But at least one document has been circulated with a list of sponsors that includes Russia — for a work programme on electronic commerce.”
See also this interesting assessment thread on Twitter from law professor Nicolas Lamp of Queen’s University, Canada.
TRADE GEEK’S SCORECARDS
For assessing the WTO Ministerial Conference
Based on our initial views on what was and ought to have been on the agenda, and the documents identified by the WTO Secretariat as part of the ministerial outcome. Documents not listed there but available elsewhere are marked with an asterisk (*)
Overall
| Part of the “package” agreed by all members | Advance on previous texts | Frame a new agenda | Kick the can down the road | Deadlock | |
| “Outcome” document | yes | yes | several including annual sessions on transit issues in trade facilitation | some issues |
Negotiations and declarations
(This has been updated. “Declarations” has been added to the title so that the SPS declaration can be moved up from “plurilaterals” — it was agreed by the full membership)
| Part of the “package” agreed by all members | Advance on previous texts | Frame a new agenda | Kick the can down the road | Deadlock | |
| Agricultural subsidies and support (pre-ministerial document) | no | no | no | Torn up because members deadlocked on new roadmap, over “stockholding” | |
| Fisheries subsidies | yes | retreat | yes | Partly: some parts to be negotiated, whole agreement terminated if fails | Art.5: subsidies contributing to overcapacity and overfishing |
| Work program on E-commerce (moratorium) | yes | no | no (new deadline set) | √ | |
| Work program on small economies | [before the conference] | no | √ | ||
| TRIPS non-violation and situation complaints | [before the conference] | no | √ | ||
| Responding to modern SPS challenge (originally submitted by a group of members) | yes | yes | yes |
Institutional issues
| Part of the “package” agreed by all members | Advance on previous texts | Frame a new agenda | Kick the can down the road | Deadlock | |
| Dispute settlement | “outcome” document | only setting deadline | no | √ | |
| WTO reform | “outcome” document | only on specifying forum | No | √ | |
| Transparency | figures in fisheries, pandemic response. Vague intent in food insecurity | yes, but retreat because agriculture withdrawn | yes |
Pandemic response and food security
| Part of the “package” agreed by all members | Advance on previous texts | Frame a new agenda | Kick the can down the road | Deadlock | |
| Response to the pandemic | yes | compromise between competing texts | yes, notably par.24: new work in councils and committees, and annual stocktaking | ||
| Food insecurity | yes | emphasis in title on insecurity, not security | yes: on net-food-importing developing countries | ||
| World Food Programme purchase exemption | yes | par.2 (added pre-conference) dilutes original | |||
| Intellectual property waiver | yes | all square brackets resolved | kicks off ratification and implementation domestically and in WTO |
Plurilaterals and joint-statement initiatives (only some members)
(This has been updated to move the SPS declaration up to “negotiations and declarations”)
| Part of the “package” agreed by all members | Advance on previous texts | Frame a new agenda | Kick the can down the road | Deadlock | |
| E-commerce | (co-convenors statement*, not an official document) | yes | Revising “working modalities” so can conclude by end-2022 | ||
| Investment facilitation | (no new ministerial document) | — | — | ||
| Domestic regulation in services | no | agreement already reached* | |||
| Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) | (co-ordinator’s report) | yes | yes | ||
| Trade and environmental sustainability structured discussions | no (December 2021 statement* launched the talks) | yes | yes | ||
| Plastic pollution | no | no | √ | ||
| Fossil fuel subsidies | no | yes | yes | ||
| Trade and gender | (co-chairs’ statement) | no | √ |
Important topics not on Ministerial Conference agenda
| Part of the “package” agreed by all members | Advance on previous texts | Frame a new agenda | Kick the can down the road | Deadlock | |
| Least-developed-countries’ graduation | no | √ | |||
| Subsidies and countervailing measures, anti-dumping | (nothing submitted) | no progress in talks since 2011 | |||
| Non-agricultural market access | (nothing submitted) | no progress in talks since 2011 | |||
| Trade in services | (nothing submitted) | no progress in talks since 2011 | |||
| Environmental goods and services | (nothing submitted) | stalled since 2016 |
Robert Wolfe is Professor Emeritus of Policy Studies, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario. He has written extensively on WTO reform issues. Follow him on Twitter: @BobWolfeSPS.
Updates:
June 20, 2022 — changing the SPS declaration to reflect agreement by the full membership
Image credit:
Delegates on the terrace at the WTO headquarters, Geneva, night of June 15, 2022 | WTO
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