“The EU, US, Canada, Australia etc, want to change the very structure of the WTO by bringing in plurilateralism as an accepted mechanism. In effect, they will curtail the ability of governments across the world to tax the electronics-digital sector.
The elite groups within the WTO, for example, seek to prohibit restrictions on crossborder data flows and ban localisation of servers, clearly in a bid to freeze the firstmover advantage of businesses like those in Silicon Valley. “If countries are allowed to bypass multilateral and consensus-based mechanisms and permitted to have agreements among themselves, making WTO a party to it, then it will be a UN Security Council moment for WTO.” “India has been opposing plurilateral treaties because plurilateralism creates elite groups within the WTO,” says Jayant Dasgupta, former Indian ambassador to WTO. Jayant Dasgupta, Former Indian ambassador to WTO If countries are allowed to bypass multilateral and consensusbased mechanisms and permitted to have agreements among themselves, making WTO a party to it, then it will be a UN Security Council moment for WTO." "India has been opposing plurilateral treaties because plurilateralism creates elite groups within the WTO. Some developed nations/members, the EU in particular, are seeking to make fundamental changes to the very architecture of the WTO, which will enable them to negotiate new agreements without receiving approvals from all WTO members. Unlike in the UN, the WTO secretariat wields very little power.Ī new challenge for middle-income nations such as India has been the growing formation of elite clubs within the WTO framework. Other smaller bodies such as goods council, services council and intellectual property council report to the general council. Below that lies the general council comprising ambassadors and select officers posted in Geneva.
In terms of structure, the ministerial conference, which usually meets every two years, is the top decision-making body of the WTO. The present WTO rules are an outcome of GATT’s Uruguay Round of negotiations (1986-94), the complete set of which runs into some 30,000 pages. Its predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade or GATT (1948-94), was confined to trade in goods but it was the harbinger of multilateralism. It also created a well-defined procedure for settlement of disputes. Since it was established in 1995, the WTO and its agreements have dealt with international trade in goods and services, covering some newer areas such as intellectual property and subsidies. India’s stand should be to make WTO work more efficiently and effectively,” he says, adding that he expects MC12 to bring in some forward-looking dynamism in the global trading system. All decisions need to be taken by consensus. If one country objects, a proposal can’t go forward. “WTO is a rule-based, democratic and transparent organisation.
Suresh Prabhu, Former Commerce Ministerįormer Union commerce and industry minister Suresh Prabhu, who is known for his advocacy of multilateralism, argues that India’s interests lie in the multilateral trading system. India’s stand should be to make the WTO work more efficiently and effectively." WTO is a rule-based, democratic and transparent organisation. "India’s interests lie in the multilateral trading system. The deliverables on the table are getting shrunk even as Indian officials who are privy to the negotiations tell ET that there could be some headway on fisheries subsidies as well as in the wrapping up of a text - more a declaration than an agreement - on what should be the role of trade in encountering future health crises. If the pre-event negotiations and the convergence therein are any indication, the ministerial conference is likely to falter once again. Such a miracle, though, is unlikely to happen. Delegates from 164 member nations have to take decisions on a range of unresolved issues - from farm and fisheries subsidies to temporarily waiving off intellectual property rights for manufacturing Covid-19 vaccines and products. There are, therefore, more pending issues than ever before as trade ministers from across the world assemble at the WTO headquarters between June 12 and 15. Originally scheduled to be held in June 2020 in Kazakhstan’s Nur-Sultan, it was postponed twice due to the pandemic. The World Trade Organisation’s 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) will kick off today in Switzerland’s diplomatic town of Geneva.
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