Fisheries subsidies negotiations at the World Trade Organization Ministerial (WTO) Ministerial Conference are continuing to propose subsidy bans that are failing to hold the big distant water fishing fleets accountable. As negotiations continue past their deadline, the latest circulated draft text shows major concessions being made to the large fishing fleets, in particular the distant water fleets who are appearing to have no hard prohibitions on their subsidies. This text asks member to refrain, to the greatest extent possible to provide subsidies for distant water fishing. While there is a requirement to show that the fishing is sustainable, because there is no hard subsidy ban in place and little to hold them to account. “The current proposals are a last-minute carve out for the biggest fleets, this represents a significant failure for the negotiations despite the hard work and resolve by many developing countries and small-island developing states to hold them to account.
Reports Search
Civil society organisations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in the United Arab Emirates this week have criticized restrictions on their participation, including alleging that some of their members had been briefly detained at the talks.
Our World Is Not For Sale (OWINFS), a network of civil society groups, said on Wednesday it had complained to WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala over several incidents of "detainment, confiscation of materials, and heavy-handed restrictions on lobbying by civil society" groups.
The WTO, in a statement, said the director-general had met with civil society representatives on Tuesday to discuss their concerns and had since spoken with the host chair of the talks to identify solutions.
This month the World Trade Organization threw in the towel on COVID-19. Medicines like Paxlovid have been plentiful in the U.S. and Europe, but because of insufficient supplies and high prices, hardly anyone in Africa, Asia, and Latin America has had access. After more than three years of debate, the WTO declared on Feb. 13 that it was unable to reach agreement on waiving global patent rules for COVID-19 treatment to ease the way for expanded production.
-- A deal to renew the World Trade Organization’s moratorium on electronic commerce duties likely will include language on an e-commerce work program requiring that members define the parameters of the temporary ban -- a move industry stakeholders fear could make future renewals even more difficult.
Negotiations on e-commerce will begin in earnest here at the 13th ministerial conference on Thursday -- the last scheduled day of a ministerial many expect will be extended one more day. New Zealand Trade Minister and MC13 Vice Minister Todd McClay told Inside U.S. Trade he believes the most likely outcome on e-commerce is that the moratorium is renewed in parallel with a work program that calls on members to clarify the moratorium’s definition by the next ministerial.
But many stakeholders here believe the moratorium’s renewal is only a 50-50 prospect, with some believing it might not be even that high.
This month the World Trade Organization threw in the towel on COVID-19. Medicines like Paxlovid have been plentiful in the U.S. and Europe, but because of insufficient supplies and high prices, hardly anyone in Africa, Asia, and Latin America has had access. After more than three years of debate, the WTO declared on Feb. 13 that it was unable to reach agreement on waiving global patent rules for COVID-19 treatment to ease the way for expanded production.
South Africa and India have formally opposed the adopton of the Investment Facilitaton “for Development” Agreement for consideraton during the 13th Ministerial Conference (MC13) of the WTO, upholding legal procedures regarding plurilaterals of the global trade body.
The Marrakesh Agreement is unambiguous that a new plurilateral agreement can only be adopted in the WTO through “Annex 4” rules, as proponents of the IF agreement are proposing, exclusively by explicit consensus of all WTO Members.
There is no consensus at the MC13 that the IF can even be legally entered on the agenda. Previous decisions of WTO Ministers are clear that negotatons on investment can only be launched by consensus, once the Doha round is over, so the IF has no legal status in the WTO.
The Minister of Trade for South Korea, a co-sponsor of the agreement, acknowledged they would need consensus to incorporate the deal, and let slip that the “WTO Secretariat is trying to persuade opponents” to drop their oppositIon.
Read more here
More than 120 countries on 25 February circulated the Joint Ministerial Declaration on Investment Facilitation for Development (IFD) at the World Trade Organization’s 13th ministerial conference (MC13) in Abu Dhabi, setting the stage for a tense battle over the entry of the IFD Agreement into the WTO on procedural and systemic grounds, said people familiar with the development.
India and South Africa have consistently blocked the entry of the IFD agreement as a plurilateral agreement on both procedural and systemic grounds.
After maintaining a rather low profile for 23 years, China seems to be asserting its influence at the WTO’s 13th Ministerial Conference (MC13), set to commence on 26 February in Abu Dhabi, said people familiar with the development.
Upon its access to the World Trade Organization at its fourth ministerial conference in Doha, Qatar, in 2001, China initially assumed a cautious stance.
Trade ministers of more than 40 countries of the Group of 33 (G33), coordinated by Indonesia, on 25 February issued a clarion call for adopting the much-delayed mandated “permanent solution” for public stockholding (PSH) programs for food security at the WTO’s 13th ministerial conference (MC13) in Abu Dhabi.
A day before the commencement of MC13 at the Abu Dhabi conference hall, the G33 trade ministers expressed deep concern that “almost 600 million people will be chronically undernourished in 2030, and hunger will increase significantly in Africa by 2030, as recently projected by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.”
Amidst a tense negotiating climate, the fate of the World Trade Organization’s 13th ministerial conference (MC13), which commences on 26 February in Abu Dhabi, will be decided by three main issues among others, said people familiar with the development.
The three issues that could tilt the outcome at MC13 one way or the other are the permanent solution for public stockholding (PSH) programs for food security, the termination/extension of the moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions, and the controversial proposal to integrate the proposed plurilateral agreement on Investment Facilitation for Development (IFD) into the WTO rule book.