Simply put: ‘PSH’, the biggest controversy in the WTO agriculture talks

SEE ALSO

In depth:
Behind the rhetoric: ‘Public stockholding for food security’ in the WTO
WTO fact sheet:
The Bali decision on stockholding for food security in developing countries
All stories on this topic (tagged “food stockholding”)

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By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED FEBRUARY 25, 2024 | UPDATED APRIL 22, 2024

It almost wrecked the World Trade Organization’s Ministerial Conference in Bali in 2013. It delayed by a year the final agreement on an entirely separate topic: trade facilitation. It caused agriculture to be dropped completely from the 2022 Ministerial Conference in Geneva, and for the second time in a row, at the 2024 Abu Dhabi conference.

The misleadingly-named “public stockholding” (“PSH”) is currently the most controversial subject in the WTO’s agricultural negotiations.

Those initial letters would more appropriately stand for “(over-the-limit) Price support in food Stock-Holding”.

CONTINUE READING or use these links to JUMP DOWN THE PAGE:

What’s it about? | What are the rules? | What else is demanded? | Who has breached its subsidy limit? | So how’s it going? | In a nutshell

TABLES AND DATA: Which countries have notified eligible programmes? | India’s notified breaches of domestic support limits for rice | Rice, shares of world exports

What’s it about?

It’s probably best to start with what it’s not about.

It’s not about food stockholding. There are no WTO rules against that.

WTO senior officials face struggle to avoid distractions ‘elsewhere’

UPDATE October 30, 2023—The G7 trade ministers’ statement issued in Japan on October 2023 covers a lot of these issues.


UPDATE October 25, 2023—As we thought, little has emerged on the substance, particularly whether the officials narrowed any gaps on substance, or showed they were receptive to others’ concerns and therefore prepared to move from existing positions.

The chairs’ summary (with oral reports from break-out sessions) and the WTO website news story are optimistic — more than some might be — but mainly based on the process and the tone, at least as far as we can tell from their descriptions.

For example, they were encouraged by the agreement to bring forward the target for concluding a fisheries subsidies text to the end of this year. But what does it really signify? Does it show the chances of a deal have improved? Or is it simply practical — that a text is needed by about that time if a deal is to be concluded by the February Ministerial Conference. There was no report of any movement in the widely differing positions on the text.

The rest of their summary seems similar, and includes some floated views that will not work.

Whether that translates into genuine progress in the final months of the year remains to be seen. Which is more-or-less what we suggested.

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By Peter Ungphakorn and Robert Wolfe
POSTED OCTOBER 19, 2023 | UPDATED NOVEMBER 1, 2023

In the middle of last month, a well-known journalist specialising in trade made “one of my infrequent trips” to the World Trade Organization in Geneva. He found that “the big trade news” during the WTO’s high profile annual public forum was “unilateral action that took place elsewhere”.

That just about sums up the situation facing senior officials of WTO member governments as they head for one of their own infrequent trips to the WTO’s Geneva offices.

On Monday and Tuesday (October 23–24, 2023), officials from capitals have been summoned to Geneva to try to drag themselves, their counterparts and their Geneva delegations further along the road towards meaningful results when their ministers gather in Abu Dhabi early next year (February 26–29, 2024).

Hamid Mamdouh — WTO reform imperative: a possible way forward

Posted by Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED NOVEMBER 9, 2021 | UPDATED NOVEMBER 9, 2021

This is a short proposal on World Trade Organization (WTO) reform by Hamid Mamdouh, former director of the WTO Secretariat’s Trade in Services Division and a recent candidate to be WTO director-general.

Mamdouh proposes members start from overall principles and cover all three of the WTO’s main functions:

• implementation in the WTO councils and committees (he calls this “oversight”, a reference to “oversee” in Article 4.5 of the WTO Agreement, which defines their functions)
• negotiations
• dispute settlement including the crisis in the appeals stage.

This should be done, he suggests, in a new working party to start work in the new year.

He is not alone. The EU Commission and Council have also floated the idea of a working group on WTO reform in a trade policy statement presented to the European Parliament on February 18, 2021 (page 18 of this). The EU is understood to be discussing the proposal privately with other delegations in Geneva.

Behind the rhetoric: ‘Public stockholding for food security’ in the WTO

SEE ALSO
Simply put: ‘PSH’, the biggest controversy in the WTO agriculture talks
all stories on this topic (tagged “food stockholding”)

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By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED AUGUST 24, 2020 | UPDATED FEBRUARY 10, 2024

In late March 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated around the world, India announced it had broken a key trade rule.

It told fellow-members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) that its domestic rice subsidies in 2018/2019 had exceeded the limit it had agreed. But instead of facing a possible legal challenge for breaking a commitment, India invoked a “peace clause” agreed in 2013 and 2014.

The issue is so controversial that the 2013/2014 deal to allow programmes like India’s to escape legal challenge was only possible with a lot of behind-the-scenes arm-twisting and some strict conditions, and only as a temporary fix.

India and its allies were dissatisfied and continued to push in the WTO agriculture negotiations for a permanent replacement with more lenient conditions.

A decade later, members remain deadlocked so badly that agriculture had to be dropped almost completely from the 2022 WTO Ministerial Conference in Geneva — after an odd sequence of events involving India (see below).

It threatens a repeat at the February 26–27, 2024 Ministerial Conference in Abu Dhabi.

The WTO is surprisingly busy — considering it’s supposed to be dead

By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED JANUARY 17, 2020 | UPDATED JANUARY 17, 2020

As December approached last year, a steady stream of news reports and other articles warned of the impending death of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Deathday (December 10, 2019) came and went and still the WTO is alive and kicking.

If anyone needs proof, they could look at the schedule of meetings for the coming year.

How the WTO deals with problem trade measures—it’s not just dispute settlement

By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED DECEMBER 11, 2019 | UPDATED JULY 9, 2023

A very short summary and graphic:
Dispute settlement is not essential (but it helps)

The public discussion of the Appellate Body crisis in the World Trade Organization (WTO) has revealed some fundamental misunderstandings about how governments’ actions on trade are handled in the organisation.

This is important. The WTO is now a quarter of a century old. Its real achievements are hardly noticed. They never hit the headlines.

Instead, the impression we get is that it’s all about the dispute settlement crisis (and previously the struggle to conclude negotiations).

The Appellate Body has been unable to function since December 11, 2019. This has crippled WTO dispute settlement, we’re told, ultimately jeopardising a trading system that’s supposed to be based on rules — rules that can no longer be “enforced” as a result of the crisis.

We’re going to be left with the law of the jungle instead of the rule of law. Just watch and wait. It could be the end of the WTO, we’re told.

We might have to wait an awfully long time, because keeping international trade within agreed rules relies on much more than dispute settlement. In fact a key purpose of the WTO is to keep formal disputes to a minimum, and it does a pretty good job at that.

GATT Art.24 — In-depth answers to frequently and not-so-frequently asked questions

By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED JUNE 27, 2019 | UPDATED NOVEMBER 9, 2019

This explanation of GATT Article 24 is pretty heavy-going,
because it looks at a lot of the detail. A much simpler explanation is here.

See also:
The myth of a 10-year grace period, Brexit and trade talks with the EU  | The Article 24
red herring in less than 400 words | Brexit through the magic land of Eksive
GATT Article 24: they still don’t get it (video)

I thought/hoped it would die away, but it features ever more prominently in Brexit news. The current favourite to be the next UK prime minister wants to use it, sparking a huge debate — some of it way off the mark. And yet, we really don’t need to be talking about it at all.

“It” is Article 24 of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), more specifically the paragraphs dealing with free trade agreements.

The bottom line is this: GATT Article 24 governs free trade agreements in goods. Politically, the article is unimportant and should never have been brought into the debate.

So if Article 24 is unimportant, what is important? These questions are:

• What kind of UK-EU deal is proposed?
• What would it do?
• Does it cover the UK’s needs? Who would it affect and how?
• Does it cover the EU’s needs? Who would it affect and how?
• What would it take for the UK and EU to agree?
• How long would it take?

That’s it.

IN DETAIL

A real beginner’s guide to GATT Article 24

Photo: Speed limits for 3-year-olds

By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED JUNE XXIV, MMXIX | UPDATED NOVEMBER 9, 2019

We don’t usually argue about what a law means. Somehow this WTO rule has found its way into British political debate. It has become even more prominent because it’s advocated by Boris Johnson. And yet, we really don’t need to be talking about it at all.

I wrote a Twitter thread and was trying to recreate it as a blog post (it’s now published here). Then up popped a tweet from Dr Dominic Pimenta, responding to something then-UK Trade Secretary Liam Fox said:

“Yes I think this is needed. GATT 24 for a three year old please @CoppetainPU (Like you did for the WTO)”

So, this is for three-year-olds everywhere.

Introducing the WTO elephant and its dodgy health

By Peter Ungphakorn
DECEMBER 17, 2017 | UPDATED JULY 18, 2019
ORIGINAL PUBLISHED ON UK TRADE FORUM DECEMBER 16, 2017

There’s been an elephant in the room ever since the discussion of Brexit and trade began. Gradually, bits of the animal have become visible, but what we’ve seen has not always been accurate. It’s time to complete the picture, and to understand why the beast isn’t in the best of health.