WTO trade negotiations pause after Cancun.

• Author: Wilson, Edward

Members of the World Trade Organization could not reach agreement at their September 2003 ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico, on how to move forward with the Doha multilateral trade negotiations. Ministers were to set the terms, or "modalities," for the specific negotiations that were scheduled to conclude the Doha trade talks by January 2005. Instead, negotiators reached an impasse largely over agricultural subsidies and whether to open negotiations on new issues such as investment, competition policy, government procurement, and trade facilitation of customs matters. Consultations in subsequent months were to develop plans to renew the multilateral trade negotiations, but as the year 2004 began many of the original disagreements from the Cancun conference remained unresolved.

Introduction

Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) held their Fifth Ministerial Conference from September 10 to 14, 2003, in Cancun, Mexico, where they could not reach agreement on how to move forward with the multilateral trade negotiations that opened in November 2001 in Doha, Qatar-known as the Doha Development Agenda. Ministers expected to conduct a midterm review-of-progress in the negotiations, followed by setting terms and structure (so-called negotiating modalities) for the specific individual negotiations that were to follow in 2004, with an eye to concluding the Doha trade talks by January 1, 2005.

Instead, negotiators found themselves early in the conference unable to reach agreement in the critical area of agriculture over the issue of agricultural subsidy reductions. The impasse arose largely due to an uncompromising stance taken by a recent grouping of approximately 20 developing countries-generally called the "G-20" although membership has varied. (2) The inability later in the conference to reach agreement in another significant area-the so-called Singapore issues of investment, competition policy, government procurement, and trade facilitation-led the conference chairman to close the ministerial meeting following consultations that indicated entrenched negotiating positions held by many delegations were not likely to allow a consensus to emerge in the time remaining at the conference.

The ministerial statement concluding the Cancun conference directed the officials of WTO members to continue work on outstanding issues, in coordination with the WTO Director-General and the chairman of the WTO General Council. The statement called for a WTO General Council meeting to be convened at the senior officials level no later than December 15, 2003 to take the necessary action to move toward a "successful and timely conclusion of the negotiations." (3)

Modality and Other Deadlines Slipping by 2003

During 2002 and 2003, Doha negotiators were working to reach agreement on negotiating modalities in their respective groups, although largely without success. Negotiators on agriculture were to reach agreement on a first draft of their modalities by March 31, 2003, but at that time the chairman confirmed that the group had failed to reach a set of common modalities and that-without guidance from participants on possible areas of convergence-there was no scope to attempt another draft. (4) The group was to prepare a comprehensive draft of commitments in time for the Cancun meeting, once negotiating modalities were agreed. The nonagricultural market-access group was to agree on modalities to conduct negotiations on tariff and nontariff barriers by May 31, 2003, but this deadline also passed with developed and developing country participants unable to agree over the scope set in the chairman's draft text on modalities. (5)

In the services negotiations, progress appeared more forthcoming. Initial requests for market access in services began to be tabled by July 2002 and initial offers for services market access by April 2003. Services negotiators also managed to adopt a draft text of "Modalities for the Treatment of Autonomous Liberalization" in March 2003, a portion of their negotiating agenda. (6)

Although talks on intellectual property are circumscribed to negotiating a multilateral system of notification and registration of geographical indications for wines and spirits-as set out under the "built-in" agenda of the 1994 Uruguay Round Agreements-the chairman noted at the start of 2003 that delegations" positions remained quite divided. (7) Elsewhere, however, negotiators did reach an agreement concerning the "Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs Agreement) and Public Health," a separate mandate from the 2001 Doha declaration.

Negotiators developing recommendations to make special and differential treatment more effective for developing country members finally reached an impasse in their deliberations by February 2003, despite several deadline extensions in 2002.

Finally, disagreement continued throughout 2002 and 2003 about whether or not the Doha declaration explicitly mandated negotiations to begin on a new set of topics known collectively as the "Singapore issues." These issues-involving the trade-related aspects of investment, competition policy, transparency in government procurement, and facilitation of trade customs issues-have proved difficult ever since they were raised at the WTO First Ministerial Conference held in Singapore in 1996. WTO members were scheduled to decide whether or not to start these negotiations at the Fifth Ministerial Conference in 2003, but instead the impasse reached over opening negotiations on even some portion of them triggered the conference chairman to close the Cancun conference upon seeing a broad consensus as increasingly unlikely due to such entrenched positions.

TRIPs Decision on Pharmaceutical Imports

WTO members did achieve notable progress in advance of the Cancun ministerial meeting when they adopted a decision in the area of public health related to the TRIPs Agreement. The "Declaration on the TRIPs Agreement and Public Health" (8) from the 2001 Doha ministerial conference tasked negotiators to find an expeditious solution to the difficulties faced by WTO Members possessing insufficient or no manufacturing capacity in the pharmaceutical sector when confronted with public health crises that constitute a national emergency. Foremost among such public health emergencies is that of human immunovirus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), found in particular in Southern Africa, but includes as well tuberculosis, malaria, or similar epidemics of extreme urgency. Negotiators succeeded, adopting the "Decision on the TRIPs Agreement and Public Health" (9) on August 30, 2003 which allows developing countries-in particular the least developed countries-greater access to needed vital medicines when their governments were faced with widespread public health outbreaks.

The 2003 decision sets up a system that allows an eligible importing WTO member to obtain from an eligible exporting WTO member the needed pharmaceutical supplies to address public health problems that constitute an urgent national...