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The WTO in Hong Kong: What it really means for the Doha Development Agenda

2006; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 11; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13563460600655672

1469-9923

Rorden Wilkinson,

International Arbitration and Investment Law

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. See, for instance, C. Fred Bergsten, 'Rescuing the Doha Round', Foreign Affairs, Vol. 84, No. 7 (2005); Carla A. Hills, 'The Stakes of Doha', Foreign Affairs, Vol. 84, No. 7 (2005); and Financial Times, 6 September 2005. 2. See Rorden Wilkinson, The WTO: Crisis and the Governance of Global Trade (London: Routledge, 2006). 3. Kamal Nath, Statement in Lok Sabha, 21 December 2005, http://commerce.nic.in/dec05/index.htm 4. Financial Times, 19 December 2005. 5. Robert Portman, 'Keeping Doha alive', Washington Times, 6 January 2006. 6. Peter Mandelson, speech to the Haus der Deutschen Wirtschaft, Berlin, 23 January 2006. 7. International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, Bridges, Vol. 10, No. 1, 18 January 2006, http://europa.eu.int 8. Wilkinson, The WTO. 9. WTO, 'Doha Work Programme: Decision adopted by the General Council on 1 August 2004', WT/L/579, 2 August 2004. 10. Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, China, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, India, Mexico, Pakistan, Paraguay, the Philippines, Peru, Thailand, South Africa and Venezuela. 11. Bulgaria, Chinese Taipei, Korea, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Liechtenstein, Mauritius, Norway and Switzerland. 12. Statement by nine developing countries presented by South African Delegate Faizel Ismail, 28 November 2005, paragraph 1, http://www.twnside.org.sg 13. See, for instance, Wall Street Journal, 14 December 2005; The Standard (Hong Kong), 16 December 2005; Sunday Morning Post, 18 December 2005; and Stephen Vines, 'WTO host of trouble', The Standard, 16 December 2005. 14. See, for instance, the Joint Statement by the Cairns Group and G20, 16 December 2005, http://www.cairns group.org/media/051216_joint_statement.html. 15. The facilitators in Hong Kong were (NAMA) Humayun Khan – Pakistan; (Agriculture) Mukhisa Kituyi – Kenya; (Development) Clement Rohee – Guyana; (Services) Hyun Chong Kim – Korea; (Rules) Jonas Støre – Norway; and (other issues) Ignacio Walker – Chile. 16. The G33 is a group of developing countries pressing for concessions on strategic products and a special safeguard mechanism in the DDA. The G90 brings together the LDCs, the African Union and the African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states. 17. The friends of ambition comprised Australia, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, the EU, Japan, Hong Kong, Korea, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, Switzerland and the USA; the NAMA 11 included Argentina, Venezuela, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Namibia, Pakistan, the Philippines and South Africa. 18. See the 'Covering letter of 7 December from the General Council Chair and the DG to Secretary Tsang transmitting the draft ministerial text'; and 'Doha Work Programme: Draft Ministerial Text', WT/MIN(05)/W/3, http://www.ictsd.org/ministerial/hongkong/index.htm 19. See Draft Ministerial Text, JOB(05)/298, 26 November 2005 and Draft Ministerial Text (revision), JOB(05)/298/Rev.1, 1 December 2005. The three amendments were: (i) the addition of brackets in paragraph 21 indicating the lack thus far of agreement on an aspect of the services negotiations; (ii) the removal of brackets in paragraph 53 indicating agreement to the accession of Tonga; and (iii) the addition of 'and the Decision of the General Council of 6 December 2005 on an Amendment of the TRIPS Agreement' at the end of paragraph 34 dealing with TRIPs and Public Health. 20. Comments made during a press conference by Indian Minister of Commerce and Industry Kamal Nath and Brazilian Minister of External Relations Celso Amorim, Hong Kong, 14 December 2005. 21. This was Zambian Minister and Chair of the LDC group Deepak Patel's phrase to describe the jockeying in press conferences of USTR Portman and EU Commissioner Mandelson, though it also aptly applied to press conference pronouncements of Indian Minister Nath and Brazilian Minister Amorim. 22. Bridges Daily Update, Issue 2, 14 December 2005. 23. Martin Khor, 'Brief assessment of the WTO's Hong Kong ministerial outcome', Third World Network, 20 December 2005, available at http://www.gsb.columbia.edu/ipd/pub/Khor_Reaction.pdf 24. Hong Kong ministerial declaration, 18 December 2005, WT/MIN(05)/DEC, paragraph 6. 25. Remarks by Peter Mandelson during press conference, 15 December 2005. 26. Hong Kong ministerial declaration, 18 December 2005, WT/MIN(05)/DEC, paragraph 11. 27. See Joseph E. Stiglitz & Andrew Charlton, 'The Doha Round after Hong Kong: A Preliminary Evaluation of Progress Made at the Hong Kong Ministerial', background paper for the Joint Initiative for Policy Dialogue/Brooks World Poverty Institute task force on trade, An Assessment of the Doha Round after Hong Kong, University of Manchester, 2–3 February 2006. 28. See the text-based suggestions on the issues identified in NAMA submitted by Argentina, Brazil, India, Philippines, South Africa, Namibia and Venezuela, 15 December 2005; and the African position on NAMA submitted to the ministerial conference. See also the submission by Indonesia, available at http://www.ictsd.org/ministerial/hongkong/index.htm 29. See Chinese and African Group positions on NAMA submitted to the ministerial conference, available at http://www.ictsd.org/ministerial/hongkong/index.htm 30. Martin Khor, comments to the joint Initiative for Policy Dialogue/Brooks World Poverty Institute task force on trade, An Assessment of the Doha Round after Hong Kong, University of Manchester, 3 February 2006. 31. This was also part of a wider public relations strategy. See for instance, USTR, 'Aid for Trade Press Kit', distributed 14 December 2005. 32. See Bridges Daily Update, Issue 2, 14 December 2005. 33. Hong Kong ministerial declaration, 18 December 2005, WT/MIN(05)/DEC, paragraph 57; also Annex F. 34. Bilateral negotiations as the basis of the request-and-offer system have been a technique used during rounds since the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was first created and are themselves the subject of much contention. See Rorden Wilkinson, Multilateralism and the World Trade Organisation (Routledge, 2000), pp. 106–13. 35. G90 alternative services annex, paragraph 6, submitted 16 December 2005, available at http://www.ictsd.org/ministerial/hongkong/index.htm 36. Peter Mandelson, speech to the European Parliament, Strasbourg, 16 January 2006, http://europa.eu.int 37. See Wilkinson, The WTO. 38. Mandelson, for instance, has stated that this would be his preferred position if it were a choice between a much diluted agreement and the round's protraction. See his speech to the European Parliament, Strasbourg, 16 January 2006. 39. I am grateful to James Scott for this point, as well as for providing me with the precise statistical data on the overrun of each round, including the ratio of overrun to expected completion time. 40. The Tokyo accord was an agreement among the quad to eliminate tariff and non-tariff barriers in pharmaceuticals, construction equipment, medical equipment, steel, beer, furniture, farm equipment and spirits; the harmonisation of tariffs in chemical products; a target of 50 per cent on tariffs over 15 per cent (subject to exceptions); and tariff cuts of at least one-third in all other products. 41. The 1997 Human Development Report, for instance, estimated that the LDCs stood to lose up to $600 million a year from the Uruguay Round with sub-Saharan Africa alone standing to lose $1.2 billion. See UNDP, Human Development Report 1997 (Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 82, 85–7.