OPINION:Ireland must assert at the WTO meeting that the integration of poorer economies is essential, writes Justin Kilcullen
PETER MANDELSON, the European Union's Commissioner for Trade, has said a deal at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is crucial in order to ease the global food crisis. The current negotiations, launched in Doha in 2001, have reached a decisive point. For the first time in almost three years, director general Pascal Lamy has called a ministerial meeting for July 21st.
With US elections imminent and a new European Commission in 2009, this is possibly the final opportunity for the Bush administration and Mandelson to seal a deal.
Trócaire believes the Irish Government should oppose any deal that simply perpetuates the global inequality in international trade policies and undermines the development of poor countries.
At the upcoming WTO meeting, Ireland must assert that the purpose is not to seal a political deal among the world's leading powers, but to provide a stepping stone for the integration of the world's poorest countries into the global economy.
Current negotiating proposals in the key areas of agriculture and industry lack the substantial pro-development trade reforms needed to deliver this outcome.
In 2001, after 9/11, the potential of trade to restore market confidence and drive economic growth provided the impetus for a new trade round.
Developing countries' support for this was based upon agreement among all members that the focus would be on development issues.
The talks' focus was based on recognition that many existing WTO agreements were biased against developing countries. This had to be rectified to reverse growing marginalisation of the poorest countries in the international trading system, and the rising inequalities resulting.
Key reforms agreed for the Doha round included the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (Trips), which resulted in higher costs for consumer products such as medicines, and the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA), which protected rich countries through high domestic support and tariffs, while requiring developing countries to liberalise their food imports.
Also prioritised were over 100 proposals by developing countries to resolve problems arising from the implementation of the previous trade round and numerous proposals on strengthening special provisions for developing countries.
Despite the promises, negotiations have been dominated by market access ambitions of developed countries, coupled with their desire to maintain protections for their own industries and agriculture.
These are the sectors of most interest to poor countries, as they account for most of their workforce and their hopes for future development.
As the world's economic giants vie for market domination, the urgent question is, how will this round address the historic anomalies of previous trade deals and advance the integration of the world's poorest countries into the global trading system?
The Doha round held the promise of lifting millions out of poverty. But as the years have passed and the round's development focus has been eroded, estimates of the value of a deal for the world's poorest countries have been whittled away. Studies indicate modest overall gains that would have quite different economic effects within and between countries.
Among likely net losers under current proposals are the world's poorest countries.
Agriculture is the mainstay of the world's poorest economies, underpinning their food security, export earnings and rural development. It accounts for a large share of gross domestic product (GDP), represents a major source of foreign exchange and provides subsistence and other income to more than 50 per cent of the Least Developed Countries' population.
At a time of greater price volatility in commodity markets, reflected in rising food prices, the world has a responsibility to ensure that agricultural trade policies support food and livelihood security, as well as rural development objectives.
The world's poor lack the political leverage of the agro-industrial elite. The rhetoric of development sounds increasingly hollow when, parallel to the WTO talks, the US Congress chooses to pass a Farm Bill increasing farm subsidies when US farmers are benefiting from record food prices.
The EU and US are demanding that developing countries sacrifice future development by agreeing to higher cuts in industrial tariffs than those applied by wealthier countries.
Speaking at the recent EU farm ministers meeting, Minister Brendan Smith said that "we should not be afraid to say that we will not accept a bad deal and that we need more time to address these major issues".
His views reflected concerns of Irish farm groups. But it's a bad deal for poor countries. Failure to deliver the Doha Development Round affects us all.
Ireland must use its influence to remind WTO negotiators of the need to establish trade on a fairer basis, if we are to live in a more equal world.
Justin Kilcullen is director of Trócaire