PYQ Vault · Paper 2 · Evolution of the International Economic System
Identify and evaluate the reasons for deadlock in the WTO negotiations on fisheries between the developing and developed countries.
How the answer moves
The flow snapshot — the routes in, the body, the counter-view and the routes out.
Flow snapshot — how the answer moves
Intro routes
~US$35 bn/year subsidies, ~22% on fuel → distant-water fleets pushed into poorer states’ EEZs → that capacity rests on capital + technology the South lacks → CBDR + polluter-pays — two sides solving different problems: conservation (Friends of Fish; caps on capacity-enhancing subsidies) vs livelihood (3 bn people, one-fifth of animal protein) — India: prohibitions only outside territorial waters, fuel rebates + motorisation spared — crunch point = SDT — 25-year phase-out vs ~7 — draft still bracketed on fuel and vessel subsidies → SDT is not alien to the WTO (extra time already granted) — Stiglitz / Rodrik on policy space
Body flow
developed case is not simple obstruction — stocks 90% (1974) — 65.8% (2017), so delay carries a cost — developing status is self-declared — a wide exemption could shelter large industrial subsidisers → Japan / South Korea / Chinese Taipei contest the subsidy-overfishing link itself
Counter-view
ri MC12 (June 2022) delivered where equity could be bypassed — IUU, overfished stocks, unregulated high seas — and failed on overcapacity, where it could not R2 deadlock is structural, not tactical — identical rules for unequal fleets – until differentiated rules become possible, Strange’s charge of drift into irrelevance stands
Model answer
Handwritten, in the form it would be written in the examination hall.
