It appears that industrialised nations have not learnt lessons from the Seattle debacle wherein the World Trade Organisation's ministerial meeting in November 1999, collapsed after the developing countries took a united stand in opposing the move of United States and European Union to press for inclusion of extraneous issues in the new round of multilateral trade negotiations. If non-trade issues of core labour standards and environment led to the failure of Seattle, it could be public health and food security concerns that might result in confrontation between developed and developing countries at the forthcoming WTO ministerial meeting at Doha in Qatar in November this year.

India as such is not against multilateral trade negotiations. It is for a rule based trading system and it is precisely for this India has been a founder member of General Agreement on Trade and Tariff established in late 1940s. GATI led to the establishment of World Trade Organisation at the completion of Uruguay round of multilateral trade negotiations in 1994. Uruguay round provides for mandated negotiations from January 2000 on trade in agriculture and services besides review of agreement on Trade related intellectual property rights (TRIPS) and Trade Related Investment Measures (TRIMS). As mandated by the Uruguay round, negotiations on these issues have already started. 

What India has rightly been advocating is when WTO has already been overburdened with mandated negotiations, which included as many as 200 items where is the need for starting a so-called comprehensive or balanced round of negotiations. Developing countries particularly India wants that implementation concerns of the existing WTO agreements should be addressed upfront before contemplating any new round.

Commerce Minister Mr. Murasoli Maran is justified in saying that the developing countries at the end of Uruguay round has already paid a price, a down payment in the form of agreeing to TRIPS, TRIMS and services. Now Industrialised nations want us to pay for a second time for which many developing countries are not ready. "The Uruguay round agreement mandated every two years there should be a ministerial meeting. It does not mean every two years there should be a new round. Therefore, what we suggest is in the interest of WTO, it should not convert itself into an imperium or world Policeman for global trade. We already have got a heavy mandate, built-in agenda and hence the ministerial meeting should spend time in in-depth review and, stocktaking of trading system which itself is important to the system." 

Indian Government is right in demanding the implementation of old agreements that should be addressed first as several promises made by industrialized nations to provide market access to trade from developing countries have not been fulfilled. One important aspect is to give Special and Differential treatment to developing countries. This is meant to help developing countries get market access. This has not yet been implemented by industrialized countries. Also high subsidies to farm products in industrialized nations was highly trade-restrictive for developing countries as it virtually debars access to third world farm Products despite the fact developing countries enjoyed inherent advantage in agriculture because of cheap labour. 

There is a growing realization among the developing countries that many of them signed the Uruguay round without realizing the implications fully. Besides many of the rules become perceptible only when they are implemented. During implementation some rules have become a millstone around the neck of developing countries. Without looking at these problems of implementation, industrialised nations would be doing a grave injustice by demanding a fresh round of trade negotiations which meant more concessions and rules. Such an attitude does not augur well for the WTO as it implied the state of imbalance and inequities would remain.

One clear example of how developing countries have been hoodwinked in the Uruguay round is TRIPS, which was playing havoc with the health of millions of people in poor countries. TRIPS came into being as an innocuous proposal in the Tokyo round in 1978 as a counterfeiting measure. Then it had taken as Mr. Maran says "vishwaroop of TRIPS" causing intolerable hardships particularly poor people of the developing countries by making medicines out of reach of commoners. 

Likewise developed countries agreed to give concessions in agriculture and textiles. Six years after Uruguay round had been signed, the industrialized nations are yet to fulfill them. It is precisely for this reason developing countries feel that it would be highly unfortunate if new issues are brought in as it would overburden the WTO system. The developed countries want to introduce trade and investment as well in the work programme. This means domestic countries will lose all options about foreign investment. They also want to impose condition for post investment scenario, which meant domestic firms would be badly hit. 

The developed nations also want to bring in competition into the work programme. This will expose domestic firms to the competition of powerful multinationals and put constraints on discretion to give concessions. The Industrialised nations also want to introduce Government procurement. If this comes about, developing countries would have no option to buy from domestic companies be it public sector or private sector. These proposals if implemented would adversely affect emergence, operation and growth of domestic industries, besides containing sovereignty and job opportunities. 

There is therefore some validity in the developing countries stance that implementation issues should therefore be resolved upfront and so-called new issues should be taken up only when the situation is ripe for discussion. India is right in saying that new issues should be taken up only when there is complete unanimity among all member countries of WTO. 

If Elephants (industrialized nations) join hands to push down the throat new and extraneous issues like core labour standards, ants (developing world) should join hands to safeguard their interests. WTO is for liberalization of trade and certainly there is no room for non-trade issues to be brought or discussed at the ministerial meeting at Doha. 

As it is there are so many contentious issues yet to be resolved. WTO therefore should not convert itself into a royalty collecting agency as economist Mr. Jagdish Bhagwati puts it. India is also of the view that there should be a just and fair dispute settlement mechanism. An efficient, speedy and impartial Dispute Settlement Mechanism was essential for building up an equitable, effective and predictable multilateral trading system.

In a nutshell, India's concerns are of three types: non-realisation of anticipated benefits like in the case of agreement on Textiles and clothing and Agreement on Agriculture, inequities and imbalances in some of the agreements like TRIPS, subsidies and anti-dumping; and non- operational and non-binding nature of special and differential treatment provisions. 

The negotiations on agriculture are bound to be complex as distortions in international trade in farm products are caused by developed countries due to high subsidies. Many developing countries are victims of these distortions as market access is denied to them. 

WTO is meant to encourage free trade by moving away from protectionist tendencies. But so far what has happened is that developing countries have drastically lowered their import tariffs and dismantled quantitative restrictions to provide market access to industrialized countries. But unfortunately industrialized nations have not responded adequately to help developing countries get market access for their products. The distortion is more pronounced in agriculture. The TRIPS provisions have continued the trend of swinging the balance in favour of monopoly holder by diminishing the responsibility towards the society. Developing countries want this monopoly rightly to be weakened and was against widening the scope of intellectual property to include plants and animals, plant varieties, micro-organisms and products of biotechnology and making all inventions patentable including pharmaceuticals.

The issue of market access becomes all the more important to developing countries when there is global economic slowdown as only this could help in sustaining growth. 

Another important factor is the growing tendencies to bring in extraneous issues like core labour standards and environment to erect non-trade barriers. industrialised nations during various stages o(.development violated all labour norms and had scant regard for environment. Today when developing countries were trying to improve their standard of living, they erect new barriers to deny market access. No doubt labour standards and environment are important but they should not be linked to trade.

A WTO study itself points out that the Uruguay round has significantly contributed to the liberalisation' of international trade but the post-Uruguay round situation still has many distortions. Also while access to developing countries markets, have substantially increased, it is not the case with developed countries. Life saving medicines should be available at affordable prices to improve public health in developing countries. These are some of the major concerns of the developing countries, which needed to be addressed first and Doha ministerial meeting provided an opportunity to take steps forward in multilateral trade.

(By Arrangement with Kaleidoscope)