WTO fish talks complete draft read-through with little real negotiation

See also:
Technical note on subsidies for fisheries,
“Talks face tough week as India seeks to reopen 2022 deal”
“Updates, timeline and links” since Dec 2020,
all articles tagged “fisheries subsidies”

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By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED OCTOBER 16, 2023 | UPDATED OCTOBER 16, 2023

World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiators completed their read-through of the chair’s draft on subsidies contributing to overfishing and overcapacity in the week ending October 13, 2023, but hard bargaining to resolve some wide differences still lies ahead.

WTO members completed their line-by-line reading of the 5-page, 4-article draft circulated by the talks’ chair, Iceland’s ambassador Einar Gunnarsson in early September.

The many proposals for amending the draft are being compiled into “comprehensive tables of attributed suggestions for all the provisions in that document” so that they can be compared, he told negotiators.

“In short, it is now the right time to enter into full negotiating mode,” Gunnarsson urged them, indicating that proper negotiations have not yet begun.

New draft starts text-based rush for WTO fish subsidies’ ‘missing piece’

By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED SEPTEMBER 8, 2023 | UPDATED DECEMBER 10, 2023

The chair of the World Trade Organization’s fisheries subsidies negotiations and Iceland’s ambassador, Einar Gunnarsson, circulated a new draft text on September 4, 2023, on disciplines for subsidies contributing to overcapacity and overfishing — the “missing piece” in the June 2022 agreement.

Those disciplines are a key part of the UN Sustainable Development Goal 14, target 6, whose 2020 deadline for the WTO talks had already been missed.

The new draft allows this phase of the negotiations to focus on a text rather than more general principles. Gunnarsson introduced it to WTO ambassadors at the start of his fifth “fish week” on September 18, 2023.

Touch and go at the WTO. Is the director-general’s optimism justified?

By Peter Ungphakorn and Robert Wolfe
POSTED JUNE 9, 2022 | UPDATED JUNE 12, 2022

How many times can a curtain go up and down? This is our second curtain-raiser for the World Trade Organization’s 12th Ministerial Conference, now rescheduled for June 12–15, 2022.

As we wrote when the meeting was postponed in late 2021, the WTO risks disappearing into a chasm of petty procedural wrangling over what to talk about, and how to move forward.

After delays in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic, and more recently the threat to multilateralism posed by Russia, the fact of it happening at all will be taken as a success. But have WTO members been able to move closer to significant agreement on anything?

This time our curtain-raiser proposes some benchmarks for assessment. There’s even a scorecard at the end for anyone following along at home.

‘A lot rests on Members’ shoulders’ — sixth WTO fisheries text circulated

UPDATES
See “Update on WTO fisheries subsidies talks”,
including the drafts the chair sent to the rescheduled Ministerial Conference on June 10, 2022 and the final agreement

By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED NOVEMBER 10, 2021 | UPDATED JUNE 11, 2022

The chair of the WTO fisheries subsidies negotiations circulated a new draft agreement on November 8, 2021, saying “I genuinely believe that we can deliver a balanced a meaningful outcome on fisheries subsidies” by the Ministerial Conference at the end of this month.

“The eyes of the world are really on us,” WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told ambassadors at the negotiations meeting where the new text was introduced.

“Time is short and I believe that this text reflects a very important step toward a final outcome. I really see a significant rebalancing of the provisions, including those pertaining to special and differential treatment, while, at the same time, maintaining the level of ambition.”

The new draft is the sixth compiled and circulated by the chair, Ambassador Santiago Wills of Colombia, since June 2020, the last three released as public documents since May this year.

It is based on negotiations since September and was presented to a meeting of heads of delegations (usually ambassadors) of the WTO’s 164 members.

Optimism after WTO ministers meet on fisheries subsidies, despite splits

By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED JULY 16, 2021 | UPDATED OCTOBER 10, 2021

Update: As the talks resumed after the summer break and headed for the year-end Ministerial Conference, there was little sign of any compromise on the outstanding issues.

India circulated a new proposal (not public) calling for a 25-year exemption from overfishing subsidy prohibitions for developing countries not engaged in distant water fishing. A number of delegations complained in a session on September 24 that this and other ideas in the proposal “had no element that could help bring about a compromise between members” (Amiti Sen in Hindu Business Line, September 26, 2021).

See more updates, as negotiators go through the chair’s draft line by line almost daily in October 2021.

The two people managing the negotiations on fisheries subsidies in the World Trade Organization (WTO) said they were more confident that an agreement can be reached after 104 ministers or their representatives participated in an online meeting on July 15, 2021.

“This is the closest we have ever come towards reaching an outcome — a high-quality outcome that would contribute to building a sustainable blue economy,” WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told the ministers at the end of the meeting.

“The prospect for a deal in the autumn ahead of our Ministerial Conference has clearly improved,” she said.

The next Ministerial Conference — the WTO’s top decision-making body — meets from November 30 to December 3 this year

Ambassador Santiago Wills of Colombia, who chairs the negotiations, echoed Okonjo-Iweala. He told a press conference afterwards that he was also more optimistic that an agreement can be reached in time.

But some of the statements that have been made public, with some reading between the lines, show that major differences still remain.

Fisheries subsidies chair floats new text 15 days before ministers meet

By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED JUNE 30, 2021 | UPDATED JULY 15, 2021

Two weeks before ministers from World Trade Organization (WTO) members meet to discuss the latest in the negotiations to curb harmful fisheries subsidies, the chair circulated a revised draft text on June 30, showing a wide range of differences among members.

One of the most difficult subjects is still special treatment for developing countries, where the chair, Ambassador Santiago Wills of Colombia, is now proposing a “peace clause” — agreement that for a limited time, subsidies would not be challenged legally if they were for subsistence, artisanal and small-scale fishers in developing and least-developed countries.

New WTO fisheries subsidies text published as talks head for endgame

By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED MAY 11, 2021 | UPDATED MAY 13,2021

Santiago Wills, chair of the WTO fisheries subsidies negotiations, announced the start of a new phase in the talks on May 11, 2021 with a revised text released publicly for the first time, and accelerated talks leading to an end-game meeting of ministers on July 15.

The latest revision is “a crucial step for presenting a clean draft to ministers,” said Wills, who is also Colombia’s ambassador to the WTO. The latest version includes portions in square brackets, usually indicating disagreement among members.

The 9-page new text is here, with a 26-page explanation from the chair. See also this WTO news story

UPDATES: the WTO fisheries subsidies talks. 2020–2024

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By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED APRIL 21, 2021 | UPDATED AS INDICATED

The drive for a WTO agreement on fisheries subsidies accelerated in 2021 and eventually led to a slightly stripped down deal.

The agreement reached at the Geneva ministerial conference on June 17, 2022 had a vital piece missing, subsidies contributing to overfishing and overcapacity. See also: ‘Fisheries subsidies’ has been agreed by WTO ministers. What’s next? Talks continue in the search for that missing piece. Failure means the agreement self-destructs.

Updates on the latest developments will be added here, with links to new documents and news items, including ratifications (chart and in a nutshell).

Key events

• Latest ratifications chart, ratifications summary, events
• April 12, 2024 — chair Gunnarsson circulates a copy of the “advance draft” from the final day of the Abu Dhabi Ministerial Conference. His accompanying explanation includes an account of the negotiations in Abu Dhabi
• March 2, 2024 (updated) — The Abu Dhabi Ministerial Conference ends. Members are totally deadlocked on fisheries subsidies (and agriculture). The final declaration does not even mention it. Eye witnesses report a confrontation between ministers from India, Fiji and Vanuatu
• February 26–27, 2024 — big celebration of 69 ratifications, with one more a day later, but the target for entry into force is missed and quietly dropped
• February 16–19, 2024 — draft for the Abu Dhabi Ministerial Conference circulated
• January 16–February 12, 2024 — the final busy “fish month” before the Ministerial Conference leaves the chair with a lot of redrafting. He plans to circulate a new version before the conference.
• December 21, 2023 (updated January 2, 2024) — the chair’s new draft and explanation are released publicly
• December 12, 2023 — next round of talks: a “fish month” from mid-January 2024. Will members have enough time to settle all their differences?
• December 4–8, 2023 — at the end of the final “fish week” of 2023, chair Einar Gunnarsson concedes that agreement cannot be reached by year-end. Negotiators are left with lots still to do and no end in sight. No new ratifications since October either
• October 23–24, 2023 — year-end set as target to complete negotiations on the text. Also, seven new ratifications. Does that count as a surge?
• October 9–13, 2023 — sixth “fish week”, members set out their differences but do not negotiate. Details of India’s controversial paper emerge
• September 18–22, 2023 — fifth “fish week”, call for ratifications when senior officials meet, October 23–24
• September 9–10, 2023 — G20 leaders’ strange commitment
• September 4, 2023 — first draft on disciplines for subsidies contributing to overcapacity and overfishing, the “missing piece”
• July 10–14, 2023 — fourth of a series of “fish weeks”
• May 25, 2023 — EU to ratify. But will that bring total ratifications to 34 or 35? A long-standing WTO conundrum
• February 28, 2023 — WTO head shifts target for ratifications back to 2024
• January 27, 2023 — new chair picked after months of deadlock
• January 24, 2023 — first ratification (Switzerland)
• October 10, 2022 — Evian retreat
• September 26, 2022 — chair Santiago Wills departs
• June 17, 2022 — slimmed-down agreement reached at ministerial conference
• June 10, 2022 — new draft
• November 24, 2021 — new draft
• November 8, 2021 — new draft
• June 30, 2021 — new draft circulated publicly
• May 27, 2021 — US proposal on forced labour
• December 2020 — draft leaked