Scoop has an Ethical Paywall
License needed for work use Register

Gordon Campbell | Parliament TV | Parliament Today | News Video | Crime | Employers | Housing | Immigration | Legal | Local Govt. | Maori | Welfare | Unions | Youth | Search

 

WTO Ministerial Shaping Up To Repeat The Power Politics Of COP 26

“Hard on the heels of the political deal-making by major powers and corporate lobbyists at the Glasgow climate conference, similar manoevres are shaping the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) 12th Ministerial Conference scheduled for 29 November to 3 December in Geneva”, reports Auckland University law professor Jane Kelsey, who closely follows developments at the WTO.

The decision to hold an in-person negotiating conference of Ministers from 164 countries in the midst of a pandemic is controversial, with serious questions about the legitimacy of decisions that will be made in the absence of many, mainly developing countries’ trade ministers.

“This Ministerial is shaping up as the most important in its 16 years”, says Professor Kelsey.

“There is broad agreement that the WTO faces an existential crisis. Every part of its functions – negotiations, dispute settlement, notifications – is paralysed.”

The US continues to block appointments to the Appellate Body, which now has no judges.

Consensus decision-making is being circumvented by groups of more powerful Members, including New Zealand, who have set out in their own “plurilateral” processes without any mandate to do so.

The European Union, United Kingdom and Norway are blocking a proposed waiver of Big Pharma’s rights over Covid-related vaccines and technologies that are guaranteed under the WTO’s Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPS) – which, Professor Kelsey observes, is not even a real trade issue.

Advertisement - scroll to continue reading

Are you getting our free newsletter?

Subscribe to Scoop’s 'The Catch Up' our free weekly newsletter sent to your inbox every Monday with stories from across our network.

New Zealand’s Ambassador David Walker is facilitating a broader Covid-19 recovery plan that has become skewed towards the interests of richer countries, especially the “Ottawa Group” that includes New Zealand.

Reports from Geneva show the so-called “Walker process” has become a Trojan Horse to introduce a raft of new obligations through the back door. Least-developed and developing countries, and their priorities, have effectively been excluded.

Professor Kelsey has written to New Zealand’s trade ministers, warning that this is negatively affecting the country’s reputation at the WTO and urging them to intercede to advance a more balanced and equitable outcome.

“The MC12 is heading for a show-down on these and other issues”, she said.

“More powerful countries are now proposing a broad-based WTO Reform agenda that would abandon consensus decision-making and let them redesign the Organization to pursue their objectives and interests.”

“Less powerful countries that already struggle to have their voices and interests heard would be even further marginalised.”

“Shamefully, this strategy is being advanced in the midst of a Covid-19 pandemic that has exposed the failings of a deeply integrated global trading system designed by powerful states for themselves and their corporations. That is what needs reform.”

© Scoop Media

Advertisement - scroll to continue reading
 
 
 
Parliament Headlines | Politics Headlines | Regional Headlines

Gordon Campbell: On The Skewed Media Coverage Of Gaza

Now that he’s back as Foreign Minister, maybe Winston Peters should start reading the MFAT website which is currently celebrating the 25th anniversary of how Kiwis alerted the rest of the world to the genocide in Rwanda. How times have changed ...

In 2023, the government is clutching its pearls because senior Labour MP Damien O’Connor has dared suggest that Gaza’s civilian population - already living under apartheid and subjected to sixteen years of an illegal embargo, and now being herded together and slaughtered indiscriminately amid the destruction of their homes, schools, mosques, and hospitals - are also victims of what amounts to genocide. More


 
 
ACT: Call To Abolish Human Rights Commission

“The Human Rights Commission’s appointment of a second Chief Executive is just the latest example of a taxpayer-funded bureaucracy serving itself at the expense of delivery for New Zealanders,” says ACT MP Todd Stephenson. More


Public Housing Futures: Christmas Comes Early For Landlords

New CTU analysis of the National & ACT coalition agreement has shown the cost of returning interest deductibility to landlords is an extra $900M on top of National’s original proposal. This is because it is going to be implemented earlier and faster, including retrospective rebates from April 2023. More

 
 
 
 
 
 

LATEST HEADLINES

  • PARLIAMENT
  • POLITICS
  • REGIONAL
 
 

InfoPages News Channels


 
 
 
 

Join Our Free Newsletter

Subscribe to Scoop’s 'The Catch Up' our free weekly newsletter sent to your inbox every Monday with stories from across our network.