BOOSTING REFORMS

WTO rules are not going to vanish. Instead, more might be added, warns Das. “The developing countries are aiming for a more efficient WTO, with add-ons.” Going by the different groups working on reforming the organisation, it is clearly a different WTO that we will see soon. The changes are aimed at

EU and Japan have issued scoping papers on strengthening WTO disciplines on industrial subsidies and state-owned enterprises, initiatives that are aimed at reining in China.

Neither India nor any developing country of note is involved in discussions of these reforms. This is worrying since the trajectory of reform will have serious implications for developing countries. At the 1994 meeting in Marrakesh, Morocco, which led to the setting up of WTO, developing countries undertook various obligations and agreed to new disciplines on trade in goods which were only tenuously connected to the central function of trade. In return, developed countries had promised changes in critical areas where they enjoyed huge advantages. One of these was a firm commitment to phase out the egregious agriculture subsidies that had been craftily kept out of the purview of the trading rules.

A quarter century after the setting up of WTO, that commitment has not been made good while an onerous list of new items have been added to the burden of poor nations. History might be repeating itself as developed nations begin a reset of WTO. It would be pertinent to recall the other crucial advice that Ricupero gave the WTO members in 1998. “A word of caution is required at this juncture on the extension of the frontiers of the trading system into new areas. The use of the trade rules as a mechanism for imposing disciplines in non-trade areas would create heavy strains on the system,” he warned. He reminded them that trade was intended to promote sustainable development and human rights. In the time of the Great Lockdown that’s an idea worth cultivating.