WTO Deputy D-G Says Finishing Fisheries Agreement Important to Show WTO Functions
Although concluding negotiations on subsidies that contribute to overfishing may seem like a long shot, since 21 years has not been long enough to reach agreement, World Trade Organization Deputy Director-General Angela Ellard said there is an eagerness among many member country delegations to get it done. She acknowledged that developing countries' desire to claim "special and differential treatment" under the body's rules to curb overfishing does cause dissension. But, she said, "it's important to show we can do this."
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Ellard, who spent nearly 30 years as a trade staffer for Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee, said working for the WTO is "rather similar" to working on Capitol Hill, as in both places, you are giving advice and representing "very diverse views" of members, and trying to bring parties together.
Since the ministerial conference was postponed because of the COVID-19 surge from the omicron variant, delegations are trying to maintain momentum in negotiating, she said, on fisheries, on agricultural issues and on TRIPS, the trade-related intellectual property protections that India and South Africa say are preventing their countries from producing as much vaccine, diagnostics and therapeutics as are needed for low-income countries.
"That negotiation is a difficult one," Ellard said, but she said that the WTO can be of use by helping to disclose how red tape and tariffs on trading components of vaccines, medicines or medical devices could affect the supply chains needed to respond to the pandemic.
"The members don't always see eye to eye on what the role of the WTO should be here," she said.
In looking at the longer term, Ellard addressed the need to reform the WTO in negotiating, monitoring and dispute settlement. "Everybody talks about the need for reform. What does that mean?" She said countries still need to reach a consensus about what the problem was in the dispute settlement system when there was an appellate body. She argued that the dispute settlement system is still functioning, as new cases are brought all the time, but did acknowledge there have been "cases appealed into the void," which means they cannot be resolved unless the appellate body is re-animated.
She also addressed a specific dispute, in which an arbitrator recently ruled that China is entitled to impose tariffs on U.S. exports equal to a little more than $45 million (see 2201260017) annually. Ellard said that while China is authorized to retaliate, it's not clear if it will choose to hike tariffs on U.S. exports.