Ian McDonald, Contributor
The economic powerhouses of the world are still hoping to revive the Doha Round of World Trade Organisation (WTO) trade negotiations. I hope if these negotiations are resumed that our CARICOM negotiators will remember clearly what is at stake. I think it was Ambassador Richard Bernal, director-general of the Regional Negotiating Machinery, who once said about these negotiations, "No deal is better than a bad deal" for small and vulnerable countries like ours. Yes, indeed.
The fact is that in all the multitudinous negotiating sessions which have taken place over the years, no specific, actual, bankable concessions were ever made to meet the needs of small, vulnerable developing countries like ours. I do not mean the rhetorical, generalised, theoretical expression of promises "to take our needs fully into account" which we have become accustomed to hearing at international conferences, but which so easily disappear like froth when final deals are done.
Theoretical success
At the original Doha conference seven years ago, small developing countries achieved a measure of theoretical success. Recall, for instance, some of the fine sentiments recorded:
The urgent need to give substance to measures favourable to developing countries, previously agreed but up to then not implemented, was declared a priority in what was then the new Doha Round. The Doha Declaration specifically recognised "the particular vulnerability of least developed countries and the special structural difficulties they face in the global economy". The Doha Declaration clearly recognised the importance of non-trade concerns. This meant that agriculture in countries like ours, and in Europe - where our special arrangements for sugar used to be an integral part of the regime - could continue to meet the non-free trade needs of societies in respect of food security, countryside environment and the stability of rural areas.The WTO granted a waiver from its non-discrimination obligations to the European Union (EU) - African Caribbean Pacific Cotonou Agreement. This agreement, among other things, recognised the special legal status of the Sugar Protocol and guaranteed the continuation of its benefits.
So, what progress was ever made in putting flesh on these fine aspirations? None that are at all obvious. Indeed, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is worse off because the Cotonou Agreement is being abandoned by the European Union in favour of regional economic partnership agreements and in these the benefits of the Sugar Protocol are unilaterally denounced by the EU and will be replaced by arrangements for sugar, which inevitably will be much less advantageous to us, involving as they will do, a price which is hugely reduced by 36 per cent, compared with what we used to receive. It is not at all clear what benefits in other areas will be won to make up for this sort of disastrous anti-benefit.
In WTO negotiations, there has never been any real 'bird in the hand' weight given to the concept of 'special and differential treatment' for small developing countries. The powerhouses continue to assume that world trading arrangements must take place on a level playing field for all. But that is fundamentally unjust and therefore ultimately unworkable. Unless 'special and differential treatment' for small, poor and vulnerable countries is systematically applied in negotiating and implementing world trading arrangements, the playing field will never be balanced and just.
Consider just four of the many inherent disadvantages from which small, undiversified economies suffer.
Developed, diversified economies are naturally better positioned to benefit from free trade compared with poor countries dependent on a few industries: if one or two businesses fail, it hardly matters among so many, but in poor countries it can be a mortal blow. Subsidies, many of them subtly hidden, continue to support businesses and whole industries in rich countries which hypocritically proclaim the need for free trade and pure market forces. Developed countries are past masters at imposing non-tariff barriers - rigid quality standards, intricate bureaucratic requirements, new security regulations - while insisting that trade with them is tariff-free and so requires reciprocity. Our hypocrisy cannot match theirs. Strong, advanced economies - possessing science and technology developed to the sharpest cutting edge of modern methods in all the disciplines which business needs - must have their tongues firmly and cynically in their cheeks when they advocate reciprocal free trade for weak, backward, skills-deprived economies which cannot possibly equal their technological fire power.Unbridled free trade is a recipe by developed countries for marginalising small, poor countries in a global economy where, naturally, the strong will prevail and the weak will go to the wall - and remember that countries like China, India and Brazil are well on the way to being 'developed' in this sense. The bridle which free trade requires is 'special and differential treatment' for the poor and the small and the vulnerable. But will the bridle ever be put firmly in place in the coming months and years?
Good principles
In the Doha Round negotiations, a number of 'principles' good for us in CARICOM were won, for example, special and differential treatment for small and vulnerable countries, allowance made for the serious impact of preference erosion, special treatment for sensitive products, long transitional periods for tariff reductions to avoid disaster in vulnerable economies. And, remember, the negotiations were named the Doha Development Round.
If these negotiations are resumed the challenge will remain the same: To realise in clauses that bite the mere lip service paid so far to principles like these. Regrettably, experience tells us that at crunch time the powers that be completely ignore principle in favour of their own bottom lines.
Ian McDonald is an occasional contributor who lives and works in Georgetown, Guyana.
