Call For Trade Rule Overhaul To Favor Poor Nations: Commonwealth Secretariat Report
The Doha global trade round should be restructured and world trade rules rewritten to favor poor countries in order to promote their economic development, a report published Monday by the Commonwealth secretariat concludes.
The report, by a group of economists led by Joseph Stiglitz, former World Bank chief economist, severely criticizes rich nations and endorses many demands made by developing countries and backed by non- governmental organizations.
The report accuses the US, the European Union and other wealthy countries of using trade negotiations to promote their own interests while continuing to discriminate against many imports from the developing world. WTO procedures also put poor countries at a disadvantage, excluding them from important decisions and denying them effective access to mechanisms for settling trade disputes.
Many of the reports proposals are likely to prove controversial, particularly because they come as governments are struggling to overcome deep differences and agree by next month a crucial negotiating framework for the Doha round.
The report calls for WTO rules on intellectual property rights to be renegotiated or taken out of the organization, and for rich countries to open their markets without requiring poorer ones to liberalize.
It says poor countries should be free to impose punitive duties on subsidized agricultural imports, liberalize their farm sectors gradually, restrict foreign access to their banking markets and protect “infant industries”. As well as eliminating agricultural support, rich countries should stop subsidizing commodities of which they are the main consumers and relax restrictions on immigrant labor.
The report says the WTO secretariat should be required to assess the impact of proposed new trade agreements on developing countries and be authorized to initiate trade disputes cases on their behalf.
Joseph Stiglitz, the 2001 Nobel prize laureate, comments in The Financial Times that the report comes down soundly on the side of the developing countries.
It is wrong to characterize the Doha agenda, especially as it has evolved over the past two years, as a development round, he writes. Recent negotiations have not only failed to push an agenda that would promote development; they have included a host of issues that are of tangential interest, or even detrimental, to developing countries.
Much attention has been focused on agriculture; the north has demanded the south open up its markets and eliminate subsidies on its products, while itself maintaining huge subsidies and closing markets. But as this report makes clear, agriculture is just the tip of the iceberg.
There is an urgent need also to reduce protection on labor-intensive manufacturing and unskilled services such as maritime and construction services. Priority should also be given to developing increased labor mobility – particularly the facilitation of temporary migration for unskilled workers.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
