There are different interpretations of whether the 4^th WTO Ministerial Meeting, which ended in Doha, Qatar on November 14, agreed to the launch of a new round of trade liberalization negotiations.  This dispute may come to be known as the Doha Dilemma.

The sections of the Doha Ministerial Declaration on the “new issues” of Investment, Competition, Transparency in Government Procurement and Trade Facilitation all state that “we agree that comprehensive negotiations will take place after the Fifth Session of the Ministerial Conference” (due in 2003) “on the basis of decisions to be taken, by explicit consensus, at that Session on modalities of negotiations”. 

The US and the EU have presented this as an agreement to launch a new round. They wish to provide a positive signal to world capital markets in order to shorten the current recession, as well as to demonstrate that the September 11 attacks will not be allowed to derail globalization.

The kind of anti-globalization demonstrations that helped to scuttle the 3^rd Ministerial in Seattle in 1999 had already been effectively neutralized by holding the meeting in Qatar, a remote desert kingdom to which physical access is highly controlled.

But some developing countries have a different view of the result of Doha. They point to the fact that their approval of the Declaration was contingent on the negotiation of a Ministerial Statement from the Conference Chairman that clarifies its interpretation. This statement records the Chairman’s understanding that at the 5^th Ministerial “a decision would indeed need be taken, by explicit consensus, before negotiations on (the new issues) could proceed”.

This would mean that Doha mandated negotiations only on the “built-in agenda” of Services and Agriculture and the “implementation issues” of Anti-Dumping, Subsidies, Dispute Settlement and Industrial Market Access, together with some environmental issues. 

India and several African and CARICOM countries cite the Ministerial Statement as an integral part of the Doha agreement, a position supported by the Chief Negotiator of the CARICOM Regional Negotiating Machinery in his report to the Heads of Government. 

The results of the Doha Ministerial will probably be discussed at the next meeting of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS) Trade Committee and may well come up at the ACS Summit next month.

In any case, negotiations on the built-in agenda and on implementation issues will proceed in 2002. The developing countries secured some concessions on implementation issues in the Doha Declaration. The challenge now is to turn these into specific commitments.

The developed countries, having announced the launch of New Round, will treat the Working Groups on the new issues as de facto negotiating groups. The strategy will be to develop a momentum that will carry through to the 5^th Ministerial in 2003 and assure consensus at that time.

(Ends)

Prof. Norman Girvan is Secretary General of the Association of Caribbean States. The views expressed are not necessarily the official views of the ACS.