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WTO meet ends without consensus:
Context
Member countries fail to reach agreement on food security right, centrality of development.
Unable to reach an agreement
The December 10-13 meeting of the World Trade Organisation’s highest decision-making body in this ‘city of fair winds’ ended becalmed with the WTO’s 164 members unable to reach a consensus on substantive issues such as the food security right of developing countries and the centrality of development in multilateral trade negotiations.
But a Deal by 2019 on fishery subsidies
However, the Ministerial Conference managed to salvage a commitment from member nations to secure a deal by 2019 on banning certain forms of fisheries’ subsidies.
US blocked demands
During hectic parleys, the U.S. blocked the demands of more than a 100 developing nations, including India and China, to implement their food security programmes without onerous conditions
Every country important for a decision
Since all major decisions in the WTO need to be taken by ‘the membership as a whole’, even a single country can end up being the deal-breaker.
India held its ground
India, for its part, thwarted attempts by several countries, both developed and developing, to initiate binding discussions on what they called the 21st century challenges to trade — including e-commerce, investment facilitation and proposed norms for small firms
How?
This it did by refusing to budge from its position that members should first resolve outstanding issues (such as food sovereignty) of the ongoing Doha Round negotiations that began in 2001 with a ‘development agenda’ (for improving the trading prospects of developing nations), before considering ‘new issues’.
Don’t give up
Responding to a question from The Hindu on how the WTO would handle this failure, especially considering that some member nations had failed to comply with certain decisions that were part of previous Ministerial Declarations, Mr. Azevêdo said: “It is disappointing that in some areas, particularly where we had a [Ministerial] mandate as you pointed out, we could not get that outcome. But we don’t give up. We just continue. This is the nature of the multilateral system.”
No MC declaration
The meeting ended without a Ministerial Declaration as members could not agree on the centrality of development, which underlies the Doha Round, as well as special and differential treatment for all developing countries
