Subverting Supachai

TNC shouldn’t undermine WTO credibility

The developed industrial countries, especially the United States and the European Union, would be making a serious mistake if they tried carving up the authority of the director-general of the World Trade Organisation by agreeing to nominate Mr Mike Moore, WTO’s present D-G, as the chairman of the Trade Negotiations Committee, formed at the Doha Ministerial meeting. Such an arrangement would subvert the clout of the D-G in-waiting, Mr Supachai Panitchpakdi of Thailand who takes over from Mr Moore in mid-2002, and grievously wound the credibility of the WTO in the eyes of the developing world. Public memories are short but few will forget the bitter and very close contest between Mr Panitchpakdi and Mr Moore for the office of the WTO D-G. It may be recalled that Mr Panitchpakdi had the numbers with him and if there was a secret ballot he would have won hands down. To avoid a two-way split down the line between developed and developing countries, on the one hand, and between Asian and Western countries, on the other, a compromise formula was sought. This compromise involved a division of the D-G’s term into two three-year tenures.

Mr Panitchpakdi waited patiently for his time, while Mr Moore ran the WTO more to please the US and EU and less to make it multilateral and transparent. His style has hurt the WTO. If he persists with his partisan ways, as amply demonstrated in the run up to the Doha Ministerial and at Doha, he can only weaken the WTO further. The organisation needs a healing touch. Since the US and EU have succeeded in creating a new framework for trade negotiations in the form of the TNC, its chairperson should be a person who can not only carry the entire membership with him but also work effectively with Mr Panitchpakdi. Dissonance at the top will also waste the gains made at Doha. It is regrettable that the WTO has become prey to excessive politicking, rumour-mongering and skullduggery in Mr Moore’s tenure. Even at a time when there were deep divisions on policy issues in the past, during Peter Sutherland’s tenure, things had not come to such a pass. Rather than give Mr Moore a new lease of life as chairman of the TNC, WTO members would be well advised to ask Mr Stuart Harbinson to step in for that job.