[CTC] WTO General Council decides to postpone MC12 indefinitely

[Arthur Stamoulis]

https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news21_e/mc12_26nov21_e.htm


General Council decides to postpone MC12 indefinitely

The General Council agreed late Friday (26 November) to postpone the
imminent Ministerial Conference after an outbreak of a particularly
transmissible strain of the COVID-19 virus led several governments to
impose travel restrictions that would have prevented many ministers from
reaching Geneva.

The 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) was due to start on 30 November and
run until 3 December, but the announcement of travel restrictions and
quarantine requirements in Switzerland and many other European countries
led General Council Chair Amb. Dacio Castillo (Honduras) to call an
emergency meeting of all WTO members to inform them of the situation.

"Given these unfortunate developments and the uncertainty that they cause,
we see no alternative but to propose to postpone the Ministerial Conference
and reconvene it as soon as possible when conditions allow," Amb. Castillo
told the General Council. "I trust that you will fully appreciate the
seriousness of the situation."

Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said the travel constraints meant that
many ministers and senior delegates could not have participated in
face-to-face negotiations at the Conference. This would render
participation on an equal basis impossible, she said.

She pointed out that many delegations have long maintained that meeting
virtually does not offer the kind of interaction necessary for holding
complex negotiations on politically sensitive issues.

"This has not been an easy recommendation to make … But as
Director-General, my priority is the health and safety of all MC12
participants – ministers, delegates and civil society. It is better to err
on the side of caution," she said, noting that the postponement would
continue to keep the WTO in line with Swiss regulations.

WTO members were unanimous in their support of the recommendations from the
Director-General and the General Council Chair, and they pledged to
continue working to narrow their differences on key topics like the WTO's
response to the pandemic and the negotiations to draft rules slashing
harmful fisheries subsidies.

The Director-General and Amb. Castillo urged delegations to maintain the
negotiating momentum that had been established in recent weeks.

"This does not mean that negotiations should stop. On the contrary,
delegations in Geneva should be fully empowered to close as many gaps as
possible. This new variant reminds us once again of the urgency of the work
we are charged with," the DG said.

Director-General Okonjo-Iweala said she had scheduled a series of
discussions over the weekend with ambassadors and visiting negotiators and
that she planned to go ahead with these meetings. Negotiating group chairs
said the same thing.

This marks the second time that the pandemic has forced a postponement of
the 12th Ministerial Conference. The meeting was originally due to take
place in June 2020 in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan. Although the General Council
decided to move the meeting to Geneva, Kazakhstan was chosen to chair the
meeting and the country's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev was due to give a
keynote speech at the Conference's opening ceremony on 30 November.

The Director-General and the General Council Chair, along with many
ambassadors who took the floor, paid tribute to Kazakhstan for its support
and commitment to the WTO and the multilateral trading system.

No date has been set for the rescheduling of the Ministerial Conference.
Arthur Stamoulis
Citizens Trade Campaign
(202) 494-8826
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.citizenstrade.org/pipermail/ctcfield-citizenstrade.org/attachments/20211126/bcca4da2/attachment.html>