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Next week the world will observe a tense meeting in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. Trade ministers and policymakers of 164 countries of the world will gather there. They will put their efforts to outline a set of global trade rules on different issue under the framework of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). This will be the 11th ministerial conference (MC11) of the WTO and the first in any South American country.
Like the previous ministerial conferences, a lot of speculations on the fate of Buenos Aires meet are there. The major negotiating factors in this conference is whether to continue the 16-year old Doha Development Agenda or not and whether to include new issues in the multilateral trade negotiations. Members are still sharply divided and will continue to be divided in the Argentine capital on December 10-13. Failure to reach any consensus may force to extend the conference for at least one more day as it happened in last ministerial conference in Nairobi in 2015.
In the WTO ministerial, member countries are represented by their formal delegations which include ministers, secretaries, ambassadors, business leaders and experts. Media people come to cover the event. Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) gather to protest unbalanced rule-makings in the name of negotiations.
The host country has already fuelled the tension and sparked debate by revoking the accreditation of at least 63 development activists of 20 NGOs. The majority of the rejected organisations work together through the global Our World Is Not for Sale (OWINFS) network. This is probably the first time in the history of WTO ministerial conferences that such a large number of NGO activists was denied to join the critical event. While NGOs are not part of the formal negotiations, they are recognised as an important partner of the overall process.
It is not clear why the Argentine government revoked the accreditation issued by the WTO. The organisation already apologised for the inconvenience that the Argentine decision may cause to the activists and experts and also mentioned that it is 'unfortunately not in a position to provide any explanation or background' in this regard. Some argued that blocking a number of development activists is a sign of repressing the voice of global south or poor nations. Generally, a large number of NGOs in WTO conferences back the developing and Least Developed Countries (LDCs).
This time, developing countries and LDCs are facing tremendous pressure from the developed countries to accept new issues like e-commerce, MSME and investment facilitation. Developed countries want that there should be multilateral rules and regulations for these issues and these should be designed and implemented through the WTO framework. Rich nations also want to abandon the Doha agendas under which a wide set of rules and regulations on trade in agriculture, industry and services were planned to be formulated through negotiations. Adopted in fourth ministerial conference in Qatari capital Doha in 2001, the negotiation is still unfinished.
The idea of abandoning the Doha agenda was clearly asserted at the Nairobi ministerial and also reflected in the declaration. Moreover, it is not necessarily the developed countries, even some developing countries were also in favour of accepting the new issues and reviewing the relevance of Doha agenda.
In such a situation, LDCs are in a serious trouble as their issues of interests have already been sidelined mainly due to two reasons. The first one is sharp divisions between the members on introducing new issues. The second is the lack of coordination among the LDCs themselves.
There are always some differences between Asian and African LDCs and mainly on duty-free quota-free market access. As African LDCs along with other African developing countries have been enjoying market access facility in the United States, they don't want any preference erosion. That's why they are reluctant to support the 100 per cent or commercially meaningful market access for LDCs to the developed countries especially to the US. As almost all the developed countries except the US have already provided tariff-free market access to all the LDCs, the last tariff hurdle is in the US. The country, however, is yet to provide full access to Asian LDCs. To be precise, three LDCs- Bangladesh, Cambodia and Nepal- are not getting any preferential treatment from the US.
For the African and Caribbean LDCs, it is Bangladesh which creates apprehension of their preference erosion. But a number of studies already made it clear that there would be very little preference erosion and only for a few African countries if the US provide 100 per cent market access to all the LDCs including Bangladesh. Even some African LDCs will be benefited. But the Nairobi ministerial declaration in 2015 ditched the commercially meaningful market access for LDCs which became a big blow to these countries. The US successfully used the divisions among the LDCs.
This time the LDCs have failed to submit any collective proposal on market access issue. Though a collective proposal on special and differential treatment (S&DT) has been submitted under G-90 banner, developed nations have refused to make any commitment in this regard. Initially G-90 proposal included around 40 issues which were later brought down to 10. But, last month in Geneva, at a meeting, the representatives of the developed nations made it clear that there would be no outcomes on S&DT. This is a setback for the LDCs.
While Cambodia is acting as the coordinator of the LDC group, it couldn't organise any LDC ministerial or meeting so far. Bangladesh commerce ministry also expressed disappointment in this regard as the country has so far taken position in the forefront to negotiate LDCs' interest. The country was the coordinator of the LDC in the last ministerial. But this time, active movement from Bangladesh is also limited. It appears that Dhaka is entirely depending on the Geneva mission of the country. No extensive preparatory meeting took place in the capital. No representative from ministries like agriculture, industry or finance is included in the country delegation. Though commerce ministry is rightly the lead ministry on WTO, the issues are quite vast and affect diversified stakeholders. Thus, involving relevant ministries and bodies may be helpful for the negotiation.
Though Bangladesh is eying on graduation from LDC status to the 'developing country' club by 2024, this should not be the reason to slowly withdraw itself from the negotiation process on behalf of LDCs. Keeping its own position in the multilateral trade negotiation forum, achieved over the years through hectic efforts, the country needs to maintain its close association with the LDC group.