Résumé
Looking back over the first four years of negotiation of the Doha Round this paper identifies and discusses a number of factors that are shaping negotiations among WTO members as they try to fulfil the development mandate for this multilateral trade negotiation. These factors are not just diplomatic in nature, indeed many relate to changes in how many view the potential impact of further multilateral trade rules and the 'legacy' effects of existing rules. Some of the proposed changes to WTO governance processes are assessed in the light of these considerations, and many are found wanting. The paper concludes that the fundamental implications of adopting a development mandate have not yet been comprehensively taken on board by WTO members and their officials.
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Extrait
Can the Wto Rise to the Challange of Economic Development?
1 Introduction
Unlike prior trade rounds, the Doha Development Agenda and associated negotiations place front and centre improvements in the wellbeing of people who live in the developing world. Paper improvements in market access and other negotiated promises are no longer enough, we are told, it is the impact on the poor that really counts. The question that immediately arises is whether the governance arrangements of the World Trade Organization (WTO), which were largely inherited from its predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), can rise to this new challenge.There are compelling reasons for thinking not. The intractable nature of the negotiations in the Doha Round compares starkly with the momentum behind the WTO's dispute settlement mechanism; an outcome which makes the WTO appear excessively legalistic and increasingly detached from both its economic and commercial rationale and newly-acquired pro-development objectives. New thinking about WTO governance must recognise the realities of greater developing country participation in WTO negotiations, the vacuum in development thinking left by the abandonment of the Washington Consensus, the paucity of serious analyses to assess negotiating positions, and other important international economic dynamics, such as the resurgence of regionalism. In this essay, I discuss these factors, highlight the challenges they pose for the WTO, and assess whether some of the proposed reforms to WTO governance processes meet those challenges. As readers will see, I find that most fall short.This essay is more provocative, less scholarly, and ultimately more pessimistic than some might like. Even so, I hope that some of the matters raised are of interest to the trade policymaking and development communities. As will become clear, the balance in this essay between challenges and solutions is skewed towards the former. I hope in future writings to redress this and encourage readers to send any reactions to this essay to me at the email address above.2 Mission Creep...Voir le contenu complet de ce document
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