What if Doha does not happen?

By S. Swaminathan

Are multilateral trade issues of paramount relevance to a world which is currently embroiled in a complex if nondescript campaign against terrorism? The World Trade Organisation (WTO), has no doubt, been working zealously towards the fourth Ministerial Conference, proposed to be held at Doha, Qatar, next month. After the Seattle debacle in 1999 of the third Ministerial Conference, the WTO has had ample reasons to choose a relatively obscure venue for a conference of ministerial dignitaries from more than 140 countries with all their paraphernalia and Doha, perhaps, qualified as a safe sanctuary away from the raucous crowds of anti-globalisation protesters.

But is not Doha now threatened as a possible periphery of military action against Osama Bin Laden and his network of terrorist outreaches?

The agenda

International conferences, in recent decades, have generated their own format, which is very different from what has conventionally been known to be appropriate, democratic procedures. The classical mode of such conferences was, to begin with a broad agenda of subjects for deliberation and discussion and then move on to a process of capturing a consensus among the participants and codifying the conclusions in the form of a resolution which is itself voted upon, after adequate scrutiny.

The modern format, by contrast, puts the ``draft resolution" first, and, in a manner of speaking, involves ``mental engineering" of the participants, at the conference, by and large, to register their accord and to deviate, if at all, from the text on offer, in matters of semantics rather than of principles or substance. Those who exercise the authority to formulate the ``draft resolution," inevitably contrive to embody their own mindset with little regard for dissentient perspectives.

After all, the objective of a conference is ``to get moving forward" rather than court the risk of faltering in the face of obstructions arising from ``phoney" notions of democratic decision-making.

In a large international organisation such as the WTO, despite the formality of ``the equal vote," the tendency for the rich countries to manipulate and ``bulldoze" a large number of developing countries, into signing agreements without conscious understanding of their practical implications for domestic policy-making, is quite well-known.

To what extent the Seattle debacle of November 1999 was caused by the tumult of the street demonstrators and by contrast the growing unease among some delegates from the developing countries about how decisions appeared to emanate from an undemocratic ``green room" enclave of privileged rich countries, will perhaps be never known. The point is that Seattle conclusively established the WTO not so much as a genuine democratic organisation but as an apparatus of the rich countries hungering for ever, for opening up markets all over the world.

There has been quite an ordeal faced by the WTO executive on shaping the agenda for the Doha conference. At least, three conflicting strands of opinion, have been in contention. First, the European Union's preponderant notion of a comprehensive ``Round" encompassing labour, environment, competition policy and so forth, which would help encounter, if not checkmate the clamour for action against agricultural tariffs. Second, the preferred U.S. approach for focussed attention on industrial tariffs, agriculture, TRIMS and TRIPS. The third, if muted viewpoint of India and some other developing countries, is that before another ``Round" is mooted, issues of implementation (of asymmetries in the Uruguay Round agreements) operating against the developing countries, need to be sorted out.

Draft declaration

If the Draft Ministerial Declaration (DMD) proposed by the WTO, for the Doha conference, is to be taken as the agenda for the conference itself, it is arguable whether the makings of a new ``Round" (Millennium Round or whatever) are clearly indicated. What is unmistakably clear is that the DMD is forward-looking (``with an expanded negotiating agenda") rather than inward- looking or evaluative of how the Uruguay Round has actually impacted upon the developing countries. On the non-implementation grievances of India and other developing countries, all that the DMD promises is that these ``issues and related concerns" would be fully addressed as part of the ``broad and balanced work programme" to be established.

The drift of the DMD is all too clearly a reinforcement of the premise that a multilateral rule-based trading system is the answer to the global issues of development, of poverty, inequality, digital divide or whatever. What began, in the Uruguay Round, namely, the new mindset which perceives every aspect of human interaction through the prism of trade, has now become an established axiom for the WTO. If investments, competition policy, government procurement, besides labour, environment are not left out of the WTO compact, it is essential that in Doha and at other future venues, the WTO should extend its tentacles to cover all such ``disciplines" so that through unhindered trade, the world will discover a new heaven of happiness and prosperity!

Looking beyond Doha

It is natural for the WTO top brass to proclaim the belief that the Doha meet has come to mean a new defining moment in the evolution of the WTO. This is more a tribute to the professional commitment of the WTO bureaucracy than any affirmation of the salvific value of multilateralism in trade, especially for the developing countries.

The truth perhaps is that if for some reason, the Doha conference fails to come off, it would be a valuable breather for India and other developing countries to work on their own unfinished agenda of shaping their domestic policy towards competitive efficiency.

Let them not allow themselves to be browbeaten by the propaganda that China's entry into the WTO is the last word on the value of global integration through trade liberalisation. After all, China took more than 20 years to emerge as an economic power in Asia and working all the time outside the multilateral institutions - the IMF, the World Bank and the GATT-WTO mechanism!

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