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| Demand 5: REBALANCE THE WTO AGREEMENTS The developing countries have been asking since long for a re-balancing of the existing WTO agreements that in many ways are skewed against their development interests, writes the S2B-NGO-network: |
| An important part of this exercise would focus on making the numerous but often too vague “special and differential treatment” (SDT) provisions more precise, operational and economically meaningful. In the run up to the Seattle and Doha WTO Ministerials developing countries produced long lists of articles that needed to be reviewed. An important reason for accepting the Doha Round was the high priority given to this review in the Doha Ministerial Declaration that guides the current negotiations.
Unfortunately there has been very little progress on the “implementation issues” and “SDT” as this review exercise is known. Although many proposals were made by the developing countries on a wide range of issues, the deadlines for resolving these issues have passed many times since 2002 and they are still unresolved. This is shameful, especially since the Doha Declaration states that the interests of developing countries are at the centre of the Doha agenda. The main reason for the "no progress" in clarifying or amending the WTO agreements is the resistance of the major developed countries, including the EU, to recognise that the WTO agreements have to be changed to suit the development needs of the developing countries. This resistance has stalled any progress. Demand 5 The EU must change its so-far stubborn and anti-development attitude and give top priority to resolving implementation issues and the issues regarding SDT in ways that adequately reflect the development policy needs and interests of developing countries. In fact, the resolution of these "development issues" should come before agreements on other issues such as NAMA and GATS, as was the original intention in the placing of the various deadlines on issues in the Doha Declaration. |
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