DEVELOPING COUNTRIES PREVAILED IN DOHA, ACTIVISTS DENOUNCE DEAL.
After seven years of back-room haggling, the 142 nations of the World Trade Organization finally agreed to launch a new round of trade talks that keep the global economy on track toward freer trade and investment, the Wall Street Journal (p.A1) reports. The negotiations in Doha, which extended a full 24 hours past the scheduled ending and frequently seemed on the verge of collapse, reflect the new realities of the post-September 11 world. In an effort to keep poorer nations on their side in the war against terrorism, US and European negotiators went further than anyone expected to meet the demands of the developing world, the story says.
Developing countries emerged with several big gains from the just-concluded WTO ministerial meeting in Doha, winning concessions on key points from the US and the EU, reports Agence France-Presse. Though they came to the Doha meeting deeply skeptical of the chances for making their voices heard, they nonetheless managed to make their presence felt.
Ultimately, the US and Europe made big concessions to the developing world?concessions fiercely resisted by pharmaceutical and steel companies in the US and farmers in Europe, the WSJ notes. The deal also demonstrated the limits of the anti-globalization movement, which successfully blocked any agreement in Seattle two years ago.
The New York Times (p.12) reports that the World Bank estimates that the outline agreed upon in Doha could help add $2.8 trillion to global economic activity by 2015.
Once force driving the officials toward an agreement was the desire to avoid a repeat of the last WTO meeting, which broke down amid rancor and violent anti-globalization protests in Seattle, the Washington Post (p.A1) reports. A second consecutive flop might have damaged the effectiveness of the Geneva-based organization.
Speaking for Africa, Kenyan Commerce Minister Mustafa Bello said at a final plenary session that the continent was "satisfied with the conclusions that have been drawn. Unlike in Seattle, Africa has been satisfied with all the stages of consultations," AFP reports.
By any account, the sweetest victory for developing countries in Doha was the agreement that a WTO accord on patent protection does not prevent them from manufacturing or importing cheaper, generic medicines to combat public health scourges such as AIDS. The text approved at the meeting, while reiterating a commitment to the WTO copyright protection agreement, states that it "does not and should not" prevent WTO members from taking steps to protect public health. That language is seen as giving developing countries greater freedom to override drug patents in a public health crisis.
Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Lafer described the text as an important step in responding to criticism levelled at the Geneva-based WTO. "The declaration doesn't change the trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS) agreement at all, but provides a new view of it which is public health-friendly," he said.
Added Michael Bailey of Oxfam International: "Doha sends a strong message that people's health overrides the interests of big drug companies."
Elsewhere, the text approved in Doha opens the door to the eventual elimination of agricultural export subsidies offered by the EU and to a lesser extent the US. In the section on agriculture, WTO members commit themselves to negotiations aimed at "phasing out" export subsidies, which according to the World Bank distort trade and harm poor countries unable to compete with subsidized prices in global markets.
Under strong pressure from Japan and developing countries, the US also agreed, in spite of strong concerns in Congress, to negotiations on anti-dumping policies, the Financial Times (p.1) notes. The meeting also approved a waiver from WTO rule of the Cotonou preferential trade agreement between the EU and 78 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries.
Many developing countries, particularly the poorest, came of age in Doha, the FT (p.6) says in a separate report. Led by Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda, they proved adept at building coalitions, formulating goals and coordinating tactics.
Developing countries at the meeting were adamant in resisting EU demands that the new round encompass negotiations on the relationship between environmental protection and trade, notes AFP. While developing country officials were unable to head off such negotiations entirely, they managed to secure assurances in the text they would not irrevocably lead to tight links between trade and the environment.
Further, the New York Times (p.A30) says in an editorial that the 144 nations of the WTO defied expectations and their own protectionist instincts yesterday by approving an agenda that over the next three years could produce an invaluable array of market-opening reforms. Though late objections by France and India threatened to scuttle the talks, and perhaps the WTO as well, the meeting ended with an exhausted but deserved sense of success.
Delegates came to Doha last week acutely aware of the compromises needed to launch a new round of trade liberalization. In the end, everyone in Doha gave something, and everyone?especially developing countries?got something, says the editorial.
In a related editorial entitled "Doha Does It," the Financial Post says that according to the World Bank, products from Third World countries face trade barriers roughly twice as a high as those facing products from developed nations. But with Doha ending in success -- the 142 countries have come to agreement on a new round of trade talks beginning next year -- it seems the world's wealthy nations have finally matched actions to words.
Agriculture posed the greatest stumbling block to success in Doha. As James Wolfensohn, head of the World Bank, pointed out to the BBC this week, it is folly for rich nations to provide US$50-billion a year in aid to poor nations while at the same time offering US$350-billion in subsidies to their own farmers.
While no one will ever agree with all the give and take of a major negotiation, it is important to dwell on the many accomplishments of Doha, says the Financial Post. The first is that a world-wide agreement has been reached --years of riots by ignorant hordes of anti-globalization protesters notwithstanding. The agreement holds out promise for the eventual elimination of harmful agricultural subsidies, the developed world has proven it can accept domestic sacrifices to facilitate economic growth in disadvantaged nations and the international trading structure has been strengthened at a time when the global economy is weakening and the world is at war against terrorism. Not bad for six days work, says the editorial.
Meanwhile, campaigners against corporate-led globalization yesterday condemned the WTO agreement on a new trade round, judging it a "disaster for the world's poor," the FT reports. "This is a massive defeat for poor people around the world," said World Development Movement Director Barry Coates. "The much-hyped development round is empty of development ? Developing countries do not have the capacity or the wish to negotiate these new agreements."
Third World Network Director Martin Khor says in an interview with Libération (France, p.26), "The final text limits the right of each country to promote its own development model. It will multiply social and economic tensions. This was a missed occasion: the WTO could have played the card of regulating globalization, but it took the risk of deregulating it further still."
Trade unions also criticized the failure of the Doha meeting to achieve significant progress on social justice and the protection of basic workers' rights, notes the FT.
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UNITED ARAB EMIRATES TO HOST AFGHAN TALKS. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) yesterday agreed to a UN request to host talks among Afghan factions, as international diplomatic efforts to spur a political solution for Afghanistan gathered speed, reports the Financial Times (p.3). Taliban forces crumbled across the country yesterday as the fundamentalist militia lost control of its eastern stronghold of Jalalabad and faced an insurrection in its southern headquarters of Kandahar.
Although an official of the UAE warned that details on the participants in the planned Afghan talks and the exact dates were still being finalized, he said, "We welcome them whenever they are ready to come." Diplomats say the meeting would aim to map out a political settlement following the end of five years of Taliban rule and the seizure of Kabul by the opposition Northern Alliance.
Also reporting, Le Figaro (France, p.4) quotes a diplomat as saying, "The problem is figuring out who will designate the participants. [UN Special Envoy for Afghanistan] Lakhdar Brahimi is hesitant." The importance of each tribe and chieftain needs to weighed, and the interests of neighboring countries have to be taken into account.
In any event, notes the story, France is insisting that a humanitarian conference be organized in New York shortly. Apart from achieving the aim of delivering aid to Afghanistan, such a conference would serve as a potent political symbol.
In Washington and London and at the UN, says the FT (p.4), diplomats meanwhile continued efforts to form an international peacekeeping force to secure Afghanistan as the Taliban loses control over large parts of the country. But rifts between the Northern Alliance, which took control of Kabul this week, and the international actors in Afghanistan are beginning to grow.
Abdullah Abdullah, the Northern Alliance's foreign minister, yesterday told Abu Dhabi television that Afghanistan would not need peacekeepers. "The obstacle to achieving peace is of course the Taliban and the terrorists," he said. "After getting rid of the Taliban and the terrorists, there won't be a war and there won't be a need for international peacekeeping forces."
Yet Brahimi told the Security Council this week that a multilateral force would be needed to ensure peace in Afghanistan. He warned that UN peacekeepers would not suffice and that it would take the Secretariat too long to gather a blue helmet force together. It would be up to the "coalition of the willing" to choose the forces' commander rather than to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, he added. Turkey, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Jordan have been suggested as potential contributors [to a peacekeeping force] and as many as 40 states, including New Zealand, Pakistan and Denmark, have expressed willingness to participate.
Countries such as China, Pakistan and Iran have called for the UN to take a leading role in shaping the future of Afghanistan, says the story. The Security Council yesterday discussed a resolution supporting Brahimi's role in shaping a transitional government in Afghanistan. But the resolution, which the council is expected to adopt this week, does not promise international peacekeepers, merely stating the intent to "ensure the safety and security of areas of Afghanistan no longer under Taliban control."
Meanwhile, reports Le Monde (France, p.4), well-informed sources say Washington is "actively engaged" in the creation of a military coalition composed of American, British, Canadian and Italian forces to ensure the security of Afghanistan's main cities. Under this plan, either a classic UN peacekeeping force or a multi-ethnic all-Afghan force would take over once peace was established.
In a related story, Reuters reports that the Asian Development Bank has offered a minimum $100 million a year over ten years to assist in Afghanistan's development. In the initial two to three years, triple that amount will be given. The ADB, which left Afghanistan in 1980, has asked that the World Bank, IMF and other countries also provide assistance. The ADB's primary priorities would focus on the country's social infrastructure, i.e.; health, education, and sanitation, in tandem with rebuilding the physical infrastructure, i.e.; roads, irrigation, and power.
Meanwhile, the Washington Post (p. A36) reports that the first barge filled with UN humanitarian relief left Uzbekistan for Afghanistan today, in a move to open a route to feed millions of residents in time for winter. Agencies are hoping yesterday's Northern Alliance victories will ease the pending relief work.
Further, the U.S. has given $600 million in aid to Pakistan as a reward for backing the war on terrorism, reports Reuters. This most recent aid comes in addition to already disbursed amounts of $39 million in debt rescheduling, $73 million for border security, $15 million in refugee aid, $34 million to combat drugs, $6.5 million in anti-terrorism funds and a $300 million line of credit from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.