Source:
Trade Observatory
In the aftermath of the July Package it is important for civil society groups to reflect on the results. October 2004.
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The Fourth World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference was held in Doha, Qatar, from 9 to 14 November 2001. The Ministerial Conference is the organization’s highest-level decision-making body. It meets at least once every two years, as required by the Marrakech Agreement, the WTO’s founding charter.
The Doha Declaration provides the mandate for negotiations on a range of subjects, including agriculture, subsidies, textiles and clothing, technical barriers to trade, trade-related investment measures and rules of origin. Many other implementation issues of concern to developing countries have not been settled, however. For these issues, Ministers agreed in Doha on a future work programme for addressing these matters.
However, international civil society rejected the legitimacy of the Doha Declaration “as the result of an outrageous process of manipulation that is totally unacceptable for an international organisation”.
More than a hundred NGOs and social movements participating in a post-Doha meeting on the WTO in Brussels on 7-9 December 2001 condemned the Doha Ministerial Conference for being a Development Disaster (“everything but development”, according to the statement). They were also appalled by the extremely manipulative tactics used by major powers and the Secretariat to push through a Declaration which lacked public legitimacy.
The Fifth Ministerial Conference held in Mexico in September 2003 was intended to be a revision of the post-Doha negotiations, but it ended up being a failure after the opposition of developing countries delegates.
Official site of the campaign to stop corporate globalization. Among the supporting organizations are Via Campesina, Third World Network, IBON Foundation, Friends of the Earth Europe, Food First, and Asia Pacific Research Network.
According to NGOs, the results of Doha have been shamelessly touted by developed countries and the Secretariat as a "development agenda" or a "development Round". In their view, nothing could be further from the truth.
Division and dissent on new WTO Round. Articles and analysis by Martin Khor, Chakravarthi Raghavan, Bhagirath Lal Das, Cecilia Oh, Tetteh Hormeku, and by C Rammanohar Reddy.
A collection of reports and news from the Doha Conference; Statements of Developing Countries on WTO Draft Declaration; and reports of Special WTO Session on TRIPS and drugs.
WTO’s official site on the Doha fourth Conference. Includes information about past Ministerial Conferences (Singapore 1996, Geneva 1998, Seattle 1999); Preparations; Meeting summaries; Statements; and official documents.
This page is a gateway to WTO information on the agenda set by the Doha Ministerial Conference. It covers the main Doha Declaration, negotiations, decision on implementation, and resulting work.
Despite the fact that the Cancun WTO ministerial is twelve months away, the influential members of the WTO have already started their work in ensuring that the configuration of factors which made Doha a ‘success’ for them can be repeated.
Statement by Mr. Martin Khor (Director, Third World Network) presented at the Group of 15 meeting of Trade and Economic Ministers, Jakarta 27 May 2001.
Through manipulation and blackmail, developed countries have managed to use the recently concluded WTO conference to extract more liberalization commitments from third world countries. By Jennifer del Rosario-Malonzo.
The World Trade Organization's new mandate raises a key question for next year's UN World Summit on Sustainable Development: Who will decide our common future? By Victor Menotti (Director, International Forum on Globalization's Environment Program).
Geneva has been a busy place this year. In July, WTO members achieved their main goal: saving the Doha Development Round and the multilateral trading system. The run up to the July Package presented a picture of a bruised and damaged multilateral trading system with all hopes pinned to a successful outcome from the July General Council. The heavy hitters came in for the meeting, including EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy and US Trade Representative, Robert Zoellick. In fact, the July Package was really more about achieving some kind of agreement-on anything-than a concrete step forward on the Doha commitments. Not a single one of the timelines for decisions laid out in Doha had been met, and desperation permeated the negotiating atmosphere. October 2004.
The Doha mandated negotiations are remarkably slow in areas of interest to the developing countries. The slow progress for instance in implementation issues, Special and Differential treatment and agriculture call to question the commitment of the major developed countries to the development of vulnerable nations in the global village. Interestingly, issues of concern to the developed countries like NAMA and Singapore issues continue to be on top of the WTO agenda.
The new WTO negotiations launched in November 2001 have been widely heralded as a "development round," but a closer look at the results of the Doha Ministerial reveals a less optimistic picture.
This paper provides a general analysis of the overall tenor of the Doha Work Programme before delving into detailed examinations of each of the major areas of work covered by the programme.
