{"id":193934,"date":"2022-07-04T20:44:58","date_gmt":"2022-07-04T15:14:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=193934"},"modified":"2022-07-05T09:47:03","modified_gmt":"2022-07-05T04:17:03","slug":"the-wtos-leaky-boat-may-be-our-best-hope-in-a-storm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/the-wtos-leaky-boat-may-be-our-best-hope-in-a-storm\/","title":{"rendered":"The WTO\u2019s leaky boat may be our best hope in a storm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

News:<\/strong> In recent months, Russia\u2019s incursion into Ukraine\u2019s sovereign territory has led to new arrangements <\/strong>in the geo-economic <\/strong>and geopolitical arena<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

What are the new arrangements or consequences?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

The Western academics are arguing that the war spells the end of a liberal world order regime<\/strong> that was established since the fall of the Berlin Wall and break-up of the Soviet Union,<\/p>\n

The Russia-Ukraine conflict has reactivated many fault-lines that lay dormant in the global economy.<\/p>\n

There may be a renewed contestation between the West and poor nations, or even civil wars in poverty-stricken nations<\/strong> because the notion of trade in the US and EU is still rooted in an outdated economic orthodoxy.<\/p>\n

What are the reasons for such re-arrangement?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

(1) A report of the FAO and the UN\u2019s World Food Programme (WFP), titled Hunger Hotspots,<\/strong> predicts that around 20 countries will be facing a heightened food availability crisis<\/strong> over the next three months.<\/p>\n

(2) Although the world was already facing a food emergency before The Ukraine War<\/strong>, due to the pandemic and climate change during 2020 and 2021. However, the Russian aggression<\/strong> has worsened the case and triggered a major global food crisis<\/strong>“.<\/p>\n

(3) India and 29 other countries have banned wheat exports after the grain prices skyrocketed globally. India saw wheat production falling<\/strong> short of forecasts and total food grain stocks dipping<\/p>\n

What are the challenges to India\u2019s wheat export ban decision?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Seven WTO members\u2014including the US, Japan, the EU and UK, have raised concerns over India\u2019s export bans at the WTO\u2019s first agriculture meeting after MC12.<\/p>\n

The Western leadership<\/strong> has undermined India\u2019s attempts to ensure food security for its citizens. This food security is done through subsidies<\/strong> at both the production and consumption stages at the WTO forum. For example, The US Congressmen want to register formal objections at the WTO against India\u2019s trade-distorting agricultural policies. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The formula being used to determine whether these subsidies are within permissible limits is based on outdated data.<\/p>\n

All attempts made by India and other developing countries to seek a permanent solution have failed so far.<\/p>\n

Other related challenges<\/strong><\/h5>\n

These advanced nations put private profit <\/strong>ahead of public health in times of global crisis.<\/p>\n

For example, rich nations refused to relax intellectual property rights (IPR) <\/strong>for global vaccine distribution at the height of the pandemic when India and South Africa proposed such a covid occasioned relaxation<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Way Forward<\/strong><\/p>\n

The WTO\u2019s role has become non-negotiable, given the severe food crisis confronting the planet. Therefore, the multilateral platforms like the World Trade Organization (WTO) hold out the best chance of confronting these challenges for the sake of developing countries.<\/p>\n

At the WTO\u2019s 12th Ministerial Conference, or MC12, <\/strong>it agreed that India and the others will supply wheat to the WFP, while being allowed to meet their domestic food security needs.<\/p>\n

At the MC12, the developing countries were allowed to produce and sell patented vaccines, both in the domestic and international markets<\/p>\n

India should continue to defend India\u2019s decisions at plurilateral meetings<\/strong>, including in the media.<\/p>\n

India\u2019 should create a coalition of developing nations<\/strong> on multilateral platforms in order to oppose the resistance..<\/p>\n

Source<\/strong>: The post is based on an article \u201cThe WTO\u2019s leaky boat may be our best hope in a storm\u201d published in the Live Mint on 3rd<\/sup> July 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

News: In recent months, Russia\u2019s incursion into Ukraine\u2019s sovereign territory has led to new arrangements in the geo-economic and geopolitical arena. What are the new arrangements or consequences? The Western academics are arguing that the war spells the end of a liberal world order regime that was established since the fall of the Berlin Wall… Continue reading The WTO\u2019s leaky boat may be our best hope in a storm<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10328,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[212,10501],"class_list":["post-193934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-live-mint","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704886035},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10328"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193934\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}