Examination of Witnesses (Questions 343
- 356)
WEDNESDAY 7 MAY 2003
MR ALBERTO
CAMPEAS AND
MR SHISHIR
PRIYADARSHI
Q343 Chairman: We are part of the
International Development Committee of the House of Commons. We
monitor and scrutinise the work of the UK Department for International
Development, so we have a particular interest in development policy.
We have therefore been taking a close interest in the Doha Round,
because people decided to call it the Doha Development Round.
We have been interested in to what extent it is going to be a
development round. We have been frequently reminded during our
inquiry that developing countries are not a monolithic bloc. From
your perspective in the Development Division, do you see groups
of developing countries with particular interests or concerns?
Is your view that increasing trade will be good for every developing
country? Or do you think that there are some developing countries
that have particular needs and particular requirements for protection?
It would be helpful to have some sort of feel about what the Development
Division here does. Is it your function to act as advocates for
developing countries or to see that there is a development input,
or to assess policies by some kind of development criteria?
Mr Campeas: Perhaps I should start
by saying that we are very pleased to be here and to be able to
discuss these issues with you. I am the Director of the Development
Division, which is a new division in the Secretariat. My colleague,
Mr Shishir Priyadarshi, is the Senior Counsellor to the Division.
I know that you have met the Director-General and also some other
colleagues, who have discussed some of these issues, because they
are related to many other things in the work of the WTO. Let me
first answer the second part of your comment on what the Development
Division is doing or why it is there. The Development Division
has a broad mandate with respect to development policy issues.
When I say "development policy issues", they are related
to the WTO work. So we basically manage all of the bodies in the
house that deal with development subjects, the most important
of which is the Committee on Trade and Development. This committee
has several forms and some branches, like a Sub-Committee on Least
Developed Countries; it also now has, as a mandate from Doha,
what we call special sessions of the committee, that is, on Special
and Differential Treatment, and dedicated sessions of the committee
on small economies. In addition, we are also responsible for servicing
the Working Group on the Transfer of Technology, which is one
of the areas of interest of course to developing countries. This
division was again established by the Director-General. I say
"again" because it was in existence before and had disappeared.
Now, in the light of the importance of work on development issues,
the Director-General felt that it was necessary to have a new
division with this mandate. In addition to the areas I have mentioned,
the other important sector which we deal with is the least developed
countries. We have a special unit for least developed countries
within the division. That special unit has several important mandates
from Doha; it also takes into account the Integrated Framework
programme for the least developed countries, which is a very important
part of the work in the areas of technical assistance and so on,
and policy advice in respect of least developed countries. This
is broadly what the division deals with. It is small, like anything
in WTO. In WTO there are no very large entities. With a few people,
we try to cover all of this. We are not the advocates of least
developed countries or of developing countries. We try to support
their activities; we try to advise them with respect to the work
that is being done in the WTO; but in no way do we have a mandate
to advise them on their positions towards the issues. The Secretariat,
with its objectivity, cannot do that. To a certain extent, we
are also a link with the developed members in the discussions
of different problems at an informal level. When we are trying
to find solutions and seeing what kind of discussions are taking
place, we often take the role of trying to find out if things
are possible, feasible, acceptable, and so on. That is the second
part, very broadly. The first part of your comment was how do
groups of developing countries participate in this work and what
do they expect. Do they expect a common solution to some of these
problems or not? A brief answer is that you have only three groups
of countries in the WTO. One is the developed economies, another
is the developing countries, with a subgroup which is the least
developed. The least developed are the ones defined as such by
the United Nations. There are no other groups recognised for any
development issues under discussion. Within the developing countries
group, there are different interests and different ways of looking
at things. There are the countries which are very interested in
Special and Differential Treatment, because they think that, through
special measures there, they will obtain more benefits. There
are others which concentrate more on certain areas where they
already have some strength, like agriculture, for example. So
they will group themselves in their interests. The least developed
try to co-ordinate their actions as much as they can, and so on.
However, I believe that there are two ways of looking at the results.
They would certainly be associated together as much as possible
in trying to get solutions to problems for the whole of the group.
In a number of areas, they will try to achieve concrete results
for different subgroups or associations of countries that have
the same interest in trying to obtain certain results.
Q344 John Barrett: I would like to
ask about the negotiating capacities of some of the countries
to which you have just referred. There are massively unequal resources
between different countries, from the developed countries to the
least developed countries. How is this compatible with the notion
of a development round? You touched on the fact that you are there
to support countries. Can you expand on how you would support
them in their capacity-building for dealing with these negotiations?
Mr Campeas: As I said, we try
to support them. We try to support them with respect to understanding
and preparing themselves for the different issues that are being
discussed. That is the main work that we do, in addition to preparing
documentation and so on—which is the normal work of a secretariat.
In giving them the support to understand the issues and to help
them prepare themselves, we have the role of, let us say, technical
support. But, I repeat, this technical support does not go to
the extent of telling them what they should do. We explain what
the issues are; we try to give them the most detailed explanations
on the issues, so that they, by themselves and in their own discussion
groups, may have a clear understanding of what to do, what to
submit and what to propose. This is in general, with respect to
the everyday work. There is a very important element which comes
from Doha—it was here before, but Doha has certainly enlarged
the role—which is the technical assistance and capacity-building
that the WTO Secretariat provides to these countries. In that
sense we try—I would not say differentiate—but we
try to be more active with those countries that have fewer resources.
So we do many more things for least developed countries, small
countries, island countries, faraway countries that are non-residents—that
is, countries that do not have missions in Geneva. One must not
forget that some countries have no missions in Geneva and, in
spite of that, they are part of the negotiations and they are
trying to follow those from Brussels, or other parts of Europe
where they have an embassy. In that sense, we are trying to target
as much as possible this technical assistance and capacity-building
for the administrations, and also for the private sectors of those
countries, where it is organised in such a way. More and more,
we do this in co-ordination with other international organisations,
like UNCTAD, the International Trade Centre, the World Bank, the
IMF, and so on. I mentioned the Integrated Framework in my general
explanation. That is a programme where several agencies are the
lead agencies, including the IMF, the World Bank, UNCTAD, ITC
and WTO. That is the way in which we are trying to assist them,
therefore. There is definitely a problem. The basic problem comes
from the fact that some of these countries do not have the infrastructure
to cover all the areas that are part of the negotiation. Perhaps
my colleague would like to enlarge on that.
Mr Priyadarshi: A small point.
You asked about negotiating capacities. If the strength of delegations
or missions here is one indication of negotiating capacities,
then a comparison at any given point of time, like today, would
obviously give you an unequal conclusion. But if you looked at
delegations or negotiating capacities and how things have moved
over the last five or six years, it is a positive trend. As an
illustrative example, the mission of India used to have a delegation
consisting of an ambassador plus two about six years ago. Now
it has an ambassador plus seven other officers. Perhaps, in view
of the expanded agenda of the WTO, they may still feel that it
is inadequate or they may feel that other delegations have perhaps
increased their strengths even more—but the trend is positive.
The other positive trend is that, again, if you look at five years
ago and you look at the situation today, the number of organisations
which have offices based in Geneva which are assisting or providing
real-time assistance to developing countries has also increased.
You have AITIC which is providing support, including to delegations
which are not based here; you have the South Centre, which is
also providing support. As Mr Campeas mentioned, you also have
UNCTAD. So you have this increasing number in terms of resources;
you have an increasing number of organisations trying to help
within their capacity, coupled with the type of support I have
just mentioned.
Q345 John Barrett: With lots of organisations
being involved, is there some way of finding if a country or a
group of countries is falling through the net? If countries do
not have the capacity or do not have the delegation here, and
so they are not contacting the WTO through their mission, does
the WTO move in the opposite direction and say, "We haven't
had contact" or "We don't feel that this country/group
of countries is arguing its case well"?
Mr Campeas: We have a special
mechanism for the countries that do not have a delegation here.
That special mechanism works basically in two ways. One is that
every fortnight we send them a resumé of the activities,
what has been discussed, and so on, for information—so that
they know what is going on. Secondly, we organise what we call
the Geneva Week. We will be having one in July. Through our technical
assistance fund, we bring officials from those countries. We brief
them, and we also have them participating in the activities of
certain bodies. This year, it coincides with the Trade Negotiations
Committee which is meeting that week and the special session of
the Committee on Agriculture is meeting that week. So these people
will have the opportunity to follow directly what is being done.
It is more difficult to do it on an everyday basis, however, because
the level of work and activity is such that, when you are in the
South Pacific or in the Caribbean and you do not have a mission
in Geneva, things can take some time to be understood. However,
there is a particular mechanism there.
Q346 John Barrett: Lastly, the new
issues which were included on the agenda for Cancun—a lot
of the ambassadors at lunchtime said that they have enough on
their plate at the moment. Is that something which has been taken
on board? That, as they increase their capacity, time-scales of
discussions may also have to be altered, particularly relating
to the new issues?
Mr Priyadarshi: I do not think
that we can answer whether or not that was taken on board. After
all, what comes on board with a certain negotiating mandate and
a certain time-line is what is decided by members. If you look
at whatever was written at the time of Doha, when new issues were
being brought in, a lot of the developing countries did indicate
this lack of resources as a reason for not being able to accept
new issues yet members have agreed to a single undertaking at
the date of 1 January 2005.
Q347 Mr Walter: In our last session
we had Stuart Harbinson here. I wonder whether, from a Development
Division perspective, you could give us your thoughts on the Harbinson
Draft, and particularly list some of the issues that it raises—issues
of market access for developing countries, export subsidies, dumping,
export credits, food aid, and trade-distorting domestic support.
Do you think that it does enough to answer the problems of developing
countries? Would it be enough to satisfy those countries? Or what
would be enough, if I may pose the question to you, to satisfy
the developing countries and to ensure their continued support
for the post-Doha agenda?
Mr Campeas: I would hesitate very
much to comment on that, if you will excuse me. The Harbinson
Draft is a process that is part of the negotiations. You had him
here and you probably had some comments from him. I would prefer
not to give our opinion on those things. It is not our role. All
we do, and all we can do, when we have developing countries coming
to us to look into these issues, is try to help them to find out
how to deal with them. I do not think that it would be appropriate
for us to comment whether the text does this or that in respect
of those issues. You know what the positions are. You know very
well the different arguments that have been given by different
participants, both the developed and the developing, depending
on the group in which they participate. Those arguments are there,
and that is all that I can really comment on.
Q348 Mr Walter: Perhaps I could get
you to look at one area here, and you need not necessarily refer
to the Harbinson Draft. It is the whole question of small farmers,
which are essential in the developing world. Refer if you like
to the Harbinson Draft, but do you think that, given the way the
negotiations are going, there is sufficient protection for small
farmers and for what I might call the more indigenous agriculture?
Mr Campeas: Since I have already
told you that I would prefer not to comment on the mechanisms
that are being discussed in the negotiations, all I can say with
respect to this more specific question is that there is definitely
a very important issue on the table for developing countries'
exporters of agricultural products. That is, in the present conditions
they are limited in their trade. That is a fact, and many of them
are making efforts to find some solution to it. If I take the
case of some exporters in South America, many of the products
are produced in small farms. In my opinion, therefore, it is not
a problem with small farmers and how they will be covered by the
results of agriculture. It is small farmers as part of an agriculture-exporting
country. They are an important part of that. You need to have
solutions so that these people will be part of international trade.
They cannot today—for different reasons. You know some of
the mechanisms that they have been denouncing, saying, "This
is not possible. We do not have the means to participate in world
trade in the same way". Hopefully, we will have something
in the results that will take care of that. Your question is on
small farmers. Indirectly, therefore, it is on the general issue
of agricultural exports.
Q349 Mr Khabra: Could you tell us
something about the development box proposals and what assessment
has been made of the likely impact of specific development box
proposals on developing countries? Furthermore, are special safeguards
and strategic products designed to serve the same purpose as a
development box?
Mr Priyadarshi: I can only supplement
what Mr Campeas has said, namely that within the Secretariat the
Agriculture Division would probably analyse the kinds of issues
you mention. The development box was a proposal put forward by
a large number of developing countries and it was mentioned a
great deal during the agriculture negotiations. In fact, some
of the reports even suggest that, during the course of discussions,
for this group of developing countries it became a focal point
and one of the most key issues as far as the negotiations were
concerned. In part, what it attempted to do—in our own very
cursory examination—was that not only did it attempt to
put all the Special and Differential Treatment or the flexibilities
in the area of agriculture together, but also sought to address
some of the problems or issues that have been mentioned. For instance,
the problems of small and marginal farmers; the problems that
further tariff reductions may cause for rural livelihoods, food
security, et cetera. But, like other proposals, it is a proposal
which is on the table and will have to be negotiated. One of the
issues which has been raised in that context is that some of the
proposals made as part of the development box could also impact
on South-South trade: it is not just a South-North issue. These
are issues which are still being considered and talked of. However,
I think that the Harbinson Text does attempt to address these.
There is a mention of the strategic products in the draft which
is out at present. There is also the mention of a need for the
SSG to take care of these. Again, it is something which is being
negotiated and saying more than that perhaps may not be appropriate
for us.
Q350 Mr Khabra: Are some of the proposals
actually controversial and drawing criticism?
Mr Priyadarshi: I would not know.
Most proposals are either agreed or not agreed. There is a set
of people which will assume that they are absolutely justified
and there will always be some members who may feel that they are
not, or that they create problems.
Q351 John Battle: Could I ask about
the question of Special and Differential Treatment? I wonder whether
you think that there are real prospects for progress there, or
whether there will ever be an acceptance of the notion of Special
and Differential Treatment and graduation? What are the prospects?
Could you give us a hint of that?
Mr Campeas: I prefer to leave
the prospects to the end. I think that one should look at the
area in this way. The issues related to Special and Differential
Treatment were inherent to the GATT and now to the WTO. One must
not forget that the GATT had already introduced Part 4 to the
text, because of the need for differentiation of some issues for
developing countries and, during the Tokyo Round, the enabling
clause was negotiated and agreed to as an additional instrument
that would make some of these issues clearer in terms of how they
had to be applied. Twenty years after the enabling clause, we
have a few of these issues again coming onto the table. What does
this show? It shows that there is a set of rules that needs to
be applied to all members in the multilateral trading system.
That is the rule. As part of the negotiations and of the conduct
of trade, it has been found—and it is still found today—that
there is a need for some members to have additional, let us say,
easier, more accessible ways of doing certain things or of applying
certain rules. That is the spirit behind this. Everyone is convinced
that there is a need for this, because we have seen in the past
that these mechanisms have been accepted by all developing and
developed countries. The problem is the interpretation of some
of those mechanisms. The interpretation is what makes it difficult
to make an assessment of what the prospects will be, because the
developed countries — some of them, at least—believe
that any Special and Differential Treatment that is applied should
not bend the rules. It is okay to give additional time so that
countries can adapt to whatever is necessary, but it is not acceptable
or correct to have a differentiated rule for a particular group
of countries. What we are now dealing with regarding Special and
Differential Treatment are two things. One, the areas which have
been included as proposals for the Special and Differential Treatment
subject itself, coming out of the Doha declaration; but also a
number of special and differential issues that are related to
other areas of the work. I am sure that the prospects in some
of these particular areas, related to the agreements, to additional
time-frames, et cetera, will be finally agreed. In the area of
Special and Differential Treatment as such, I am sure that we
will have a number of issues that will be agreed. There are some
others which are basically related to the texts of the multilateral
rules—the text of the GATT itself, and how these provisions
are applied to developed or developing countries. It will be more
difficult to achieve agreement on those, because it is a question
of interpretation. If you look at the enabling clause that was
agreed at the end of the Tokyo Round, as an additional mechanism
to Part 4 of the GATT at the time, the day it was agreed it was
agreed by all developing and developed countries, including a
number of special and differential measures on non-reciprocity,
on graduation, and so on. The following day, the interpretation
of that text by one or another of the members of the contracted
parties was already different. So it is a very complex area. We
are hopeful, however. We are working—I would not say night
and day—but we are working quite a lot, trying to get these
things moving, and we will see what comes out of it.
Q352 Tony Worthington: May I ask
you one or two questions about learning and development? One question
is about the Uruguay Round. Did you conduct or did anyone else
conduct research about the development consequences of the Uruguay
Round? Linked with that, how will you, post-Doha, ensure that
what you were aiming for from Doha led to development in developing
countries? How do you monitor that?
Mr Priyadarshi: I do not think,
and I stand to be corrected, that a specific analysis was done,
at least by the Development Division, to measure the impact of
the development consequences of the Uruguay Round. What is often
put forward in this body are what apparently were the figures
quoted before the Uruguay Round was finalised. They were not figures
which came from the WTO, but global figures. One figure that I
very often heard being quoted is that trade to developing countries
would increase by about $1,200 billion over the period, half of
those benefits coming from agriculture and textiles. Going only
by what developing countries say, a lot of these benefits did
not accrue, particularly in agriculture and textiles. But it was
not the WTO that gave those initial figures nor did we really
carry out such an assessment. Whoever gave those figures must
have done an assessment. Recent figures coming out of the World
Bank which I have read about the Doha Round are much more conservative.
This is more a bank-related issue, however, because they have
the kind of data resources to conduct that. The short answer is
no, we have not done it.
Mr Campeas: There is one important
additional thing that was done. The Secretariat carried out a
number of analyses on the results of the round with respect to
particular areas. What Mr Priyadarshi has said is true. The quantification
and so on—we all read that, and the billions of dollars.
But also on the benefits for developing countries in their own
national policies of the different agreements and rules that had
been negotiated during the Uruguay Round—and that was an
important thing. It is still an important thing today, when you
see the trade policy reviews that are carried out on different
countries. This is a very important instrument to help the countries
adopt particular rules in their legislation which will help them
participate more actively or in a better way in world trade. That
is an aspect that also has to be taken into account.
Q353 Tony Worthington: In London
and in our reading generally we have been conscious of the UNDP
report on similar issues, and we have heard evidence there. It
seems strange in a way that there are two multilateral bodies,
the UNDP and yourselves, who might be seen to be pursuing or urging
slightly different policies on the area of development. How do
you deal with that?
Mr Campeas: For us, the development
issues are related to WTO work and to international trade, and
to what the members of the organisation believe it is necessary
to do in order to achieve the best possible conditions of trading.
So for members who join the WTO, developed or developing, it is
clear that they are joining a set of rules. They are joining an
organisation that will carry out certain activities, like negotiations
in order to liberalise trade. That is what we will always try
to foster and try to assist with. If this is different from what
the UNDP or any other agency recommends, then there are definitely
differences that we will have to live with, because they have
a different mandate than ours.
Q354 Tony Worthington: There is this
tension that what we have is a development round, but if a development
round is being pursued within an organisation that has aspects
of its behaviour that are unsympathetic to development—
Mr Campeas: I would not agree
with that, but that is my opinion. The WTO is a group of members.
Those members have set the rules. We try to apply those rules
to all members and, when we see that there are difficulties, there
is Special and Differential Treatment that is negotiated in order
to give more chances and better possibilities to these countries
to apply those rules. However, the main thrust is to liberalise
international trade. That is an issue where the development dimension
is part of the whole exercise. You are not conducting international
trade in such a way that you are forgetting one area or the other.
Everything is part of a global approach. But there are definitely
certain things that members have to comply with and participate
in. I will give you an example. In the Uruguay Round many of the
developing countries in the tariff area did not give any specific
concession on the duty that was being applied. They were given
the possibility of reducing the tariffs—the ceiling bindings
on their tariffs—so they were left with an important margin
to conduct their trade. What was attempted through the negotiations
was to reduce very high tariffs that some developing countries
had that impeded trade, but they were not put in a compulsory
position where they had to give concessions which they could not
live with. There was a general approach that developing countries
could make ceiling bindings. There were a number of countries,
for example, that bound the tariff at 35%. Today they are applying
10, 15%, or whatever; they still have a margin that allows them
to raise their duty if they need to, in order to protect a certain
product for a certain period of time. I give this as an example
to show that the fact that other members may be applying a 3%
or a 5% duty or a zero duty on a particular product does not make
it compulsory for everyone. There are different mechanisms where
the development dimension comes into the picture.
Q355 Tony Worthington: When you say
WTO, you say trade liberalisation. In a sense, there is a mantra
about it. How would you say the WTO is changing? To some extent
we are all guessing, or hoping for the best in the development
business. How would you think that the WTO is changing over the
years in terms of its philosophy?
Mr Campeas: In terms of its philosophy?
There is not much change, in the sense that the WTO is only seven
years old. If there is a change in philosophy with respect to
what the GATT was?
Q356 Tony Worthington: Yes.
Mr Campeas: It is changing in
a number of things. There is the participation of the developing
countries. In the negotiations in the GATT, developing countries
negotiating in a round were perhaps 20—30 maximum. Today,
you have 100 developing countries who are participants in the
negotiations, and they are participating as actively as they can,
given their human resources, and so on. However, they are all
aware that in order to integrate into world trade you have to
be active in the WTO, and that is why we have had so many accessions
in the last few years. That is a big change. In the conduct of
these negotiations, done by a group of developed countries and
a group of developing countries, there are probably more than
100 countries which are active. If you look at the bulletin board
here, you will see that there is the Latin American Group; the
African Group; the Least Developed Group; the Like-Minded Group;
the ACPs. They are all here, meeting every day, looking at the
different issues and trying to have a common approach. That is
a tremendously big change. I am not sure what to answer as to
the philosophy, because the philosophy of the GATT was that of
a contract; it was a different kind of approach. The philosophy
is liberalisation of trade on an MFN basis as much as possible.
This is clear, and that mandate is still there.
Mr Priyadarshi: Three examples
to supplement what Mr Campeas has said about the changes that
are apparent in the WTO's working. One, the possibility of major
players coming to an agreement on an issue outside the WTO and
then transporting it into the WTO as a quid pro quo is diminishing.
Secondly, there used to be many more meetings in this body called
the "green room" process whereby 15 or 20 people got
together and, if an agreement came about, then it was sold to
the others. Even that is reducing. The third important aspect
is illustrated if you look at all the Ministerial Declarations.
The earlier ones—Singapore, Geneva, and what was contained
in the draft for Seattle—had an agenda which had been largely
put forward by developed countries. However, if you look at the
Doha declaration, there are lots of issues that have been put
forward by developing countries. There is therefore a transition
of developing countries from a reactive constituency to a proactive
constituency.
Chairman: Thank you very much for sharing
your time with us. It has been a fascinating session.
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