[CTC] New MC12 date left open as technical groundwork set to continue; Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala presses for work on TRIPS, fisheries to continue

[Arthur Stamoulis]

More updates from Geneva.  The WTO has managed to pass a new agreement for corporations, while still failing to move on the TRIPS waiver...
New MC12 date left open as technical groundwork set to continue
Borderelex, 02/12/2021 by Robert Francis <https://borderlex.net/author/robert-francisborderlex-net/>

A decision on rescheduling MC12 will not be made until early next year, according to a Geneva trade official. The majority of WTO members said at today’s Heads of Delegation meeting that they needed to see “the lay of the land” before deciding on a new date. Meanwhile technical groundwork on fish and health will continue.
A recent letter signed by Bakhyt Sultanov, Kazakhstan’s trade minister and chair of MC12, and the vice-chairs from Australia, Barbados, and Uganda proposed rescheduling the ministerial meeting to the first week of March 2022.
The proposal did not elicit the required consensus within the WTO membership.
A decision on a date has to be taken by consensus at the WTO General Council. South Africa, the ACP countries (represented by Jamaica), and the Least Developed Countries (represented by Chad) all said today that they cannot commit to a March date. India said it needs more clarity on developments around the new covid variant and Sri Lanka opposed the dates outright.
A location for MC12, if it is decided to hold it in person, will be agreed in due course and will likely be dependent on local health conditions.
A virtual ministerial is another option, but members for now are keen to hold negotiations in person if and when possible.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala presses for work on TRIPS, fisheries to continue

In the meantime, the WTO director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is keen to not let MC12’s postponement derail ongoing negotiations on fisheries subsidies and on a TRIPS waiver on COVID-19 related vaccines and medical equipment.
She is reportedly calling for clean texts on both issues to be prepared for “ministerial blessing” before the end of February 2022, and that until then all efforts should be made to fill in the current gaps.
Indeed, the Geneva trade official was keen to point out that when the Ministerial Conference is not in session, the General Council is empowered to take decisions on all issues on behalf of ministers.
This means that agreement on any text is not contingent on ministerial participation.
The chairs of the various working groups today also provided short updates on their respective files.
The lead in the fisheries subsidies negotiations Santiago Wills said today that he was very confident that an agreement could have been reached this week had MC12 gone ahead. For now, work will continue without ministers to aim for a clean text by the end of February.
In contrast, the TRIPS waiver continues to be deadlocked.
Text-based negotiations are yet to begin, although the chair of the TRIPS Council Dagfinn Sørli said that some progress has been made bilaterally and in smaller group sessions. The TRIPS council will stay in session and continuous consultations are currently taking place.
The chair of the General Council Ambassador Dacio Castillo announced today that the e-commerce moratorium and the e-commerce work programme would both be tabled for MC12, whenever and wherever this may take place.
 
WTO Scores Rare Win with $150 Billion Deal on Services Trade

By Bryce Baschuk
 
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-02/wto-scores-rare-win-with-150-billion-deal-on-services-trade <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-02/wto-scores-rare-win-with-150-billion-deal-on-services-trade>
12/2/21
 
The U.S., the European Union and 65 other governments agreed Thursday to an international accord to cut red tape on cross-border services trade. 

In a rare win for the embattled World Trade Organization, the agreement is intended to increase transparency, efficiency and predictability of international regulations for services providers, particularly in financial, communications and transport industries. 

The deal could lower trade costs by as much as $150 billion a year, according to the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. 

In a statement, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai praised the pact as “the first successful WTO services negotiation in years,” adding that it shows “how WTO members can take practical, common-sense steps to address clearly defined trade problems.”

Participants of the agreement <https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news21_e/jssdr_26nov21_e.htm> collectively represent 90% of world services trade and the benefits of the deal are available to non-participants because the deal is applied on a most-favored nation basis.

Arthur Stamoulis
Citizens Trade Campaign
(202) 494-8826




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