From Singapore to Doha

Time for conciliation and compromise at WTO

A large number of members of the World Trade Organisation have come to accept the so-called Harbinson text, a draft agenda for a possible new round of trade negotiations named after Stuart Harbinson, the chairman of the WTO General Council. The US finds in it “a right balance”, the European Union finds (positively) that “the number of issues have been whittled down” and Singapore finds that “75 per cent of the journey has been traversed”. Mr Harbinson now needs to rework the text to increase the percentage of agreement across WTO members. This does not mean that there are no problems with the text. The agriculture section needs elaboration, there are concerns about whether the agreement on Trade-related Intellectual Property Rights addresses public health issues adequately (the TRIPS Council is preparing a separate draft on this) and polarised positions exist on anti-dumping. The least developed countries will examine the special and differential treatment provisions more closely. While there is some uncertainty about whether the Doha Ministerial meeting will take place on schedule or whether there will be a less-than-Ministerial meeting in Geneva instead, these issues will continue to be important, if not in Doha, then elsewhere. Given the satisfaction across developed countries and LDCs over the Harbinson text, India’s rigid opposition to it has perplexed many abroad and at home.

India rightly feels that not enough has been done about implementation of Uruguay Round agreements, apart from meaningless best endeavour clauses. Second, there is resistance to linking trade with non-trade issues like investment and competition policy. On the former, it is important to draw a distinction between a declaration and the outcome of negotiations. It is difficult to visualise a declaration anticipating the outcome of negotiations and plugging in specifics on implementation into the declaration itself. On the latter, the draft proposes Working Groups as an alternative to negotiations, apart from the fact that investment has now become a post-establishment issue. India ought to have no problems with this and should interpret the removal of pre-establishment clauses as a victory. Commerce minister Murasoli Maran has so far represented India’s interests admirably. Perhaps it is now time to be more conciliatory and to join the consensus. We need not fear “isolation” but must prevent “marginalisation”. If some of our concerns are adequately addressed, as some have been, Mr Maran can afford to start yielding ground. The time has come to prepare the political ground at home to enable Mr Maran to make the required compromise.