{"id":33274,"date":"2018-10-30T11:38:55","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T06:08:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=33274"},"modified":"2018-10-30T11:38:55","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T06:08:55","slug":"wto-india-resolute-on-food-security","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wto-india-resolute-on-food-security\/","title":{"rendered":"WTO: India resolute on food security:\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/business\/wto-india-resolute-on-food-security\/article21615762.ece\">WTO: India resolute on food security:<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Context<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In the final stages of the ongoing summit-level negotiations of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), India upped the ante to protect its food security right, even as the U.S. refused to agree to the demands of developing nations on the issue.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Demands amendments in rules to prevent member countries from challenging current programmes<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Initially, India was bargaining hard for improving an already available mechanism that safeguards government purchase of staple foodgrain from low-income and resource-poor farmers at subsidised prices for stockpiling, and then distributing them to the country\u2019s economically weak.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Moves to \u2018foolproof\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>However, in the crunch phase of the talks, India sought to foolproof such a mechanism through an amendment of WTO rules on dispute settlement, to entirely prevent countries from legally challenging its food security programmes, according to sources privy to the negotiations.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Peace Clause<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The mechanism, called the \u2018Peace Clause\u2019, shields developing countries like India from being dragged by other countries to the WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism for breaching the ceiling on product-specific domestic support (10% of the concerned crop\u2019s value of production)<\/li>\n<li>The \u2018Peace Clause\u2019 is available to developing nations, including India, till a \u2018permanent solution\u2019 is found by the WTO members to the issue of public stockholding for food security purposes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Permanent Solution by 2017<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Members had agreed during the Ministerial Conference (or MC \u2014 the WTO\u00b4s highest decision-making body) in 2013 to find a \u2018permanent solution\u2019 by the 2017 meet<\/li>\n<li>The decision to expedite work on the \u2018permanent solution\u2019 was noted in the 2015 Nairobi MC decision<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Peace Clause tough to use<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>However, the Peace Clause\u2019s onerous conditions (on notification etc.) make it tough for developing countries to use<\/li>\n<li>Therefore, at Buenos Aires, India, along with other developing nations, wanted the \u2018Peace Clause\u2019 provisions to be improved upon and converted into a permanent solution \u2014 a demand the U.S. showed little interest in accepting.<\/li>\n<li>Owing to the U.S. not respecting the Nairobi MC decision, India had decided not to take any chances by just agreeing to a Ministerial Text\/Declaration on a \u2018permanent solution<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WTO: India resolute on food security:\u00a0 Context In the final stages of the ongoing summit-level negotiations of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), India upped the ante to protect its food security right, even as the U.S. refused to agree to the demands of developing nations on the issue. Demands amendments in rules to prevent member&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wto-india-resolute-on-food-security\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">WTO: India resolute on food security:\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704061969},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33274","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\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33274\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}