Revive the Hall

     This morning, before class, I was rereading Gareth S. Jones's article on working-class culture in late 19th century London.  Jones is, more or less, making a case for the centrality of the last third of the 19th century in the formation of working class cultural and political life in England, rather than the first third of the century, a la E.P. Thompson's deservedly widely read Making of the English Working Class.  Jones's article originally appeared in The Journal of Social History in the summer of 1974, and I recommend it for anyone interested in academic considerations of the intersection of class and politics, easily available now in pdf via JSTOR.  I first encountered the article in abridged form in an anthology, John Storey's Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: A Reader (1998) when in college thanks to one of the many unsung contingent faculty in the English department, Dan Traber.

E.P. Thompson

     (Dan's dissertation on Henry James is also available via pdf, for those so inclined, and although I have not yet read it, it occurs to me now that I should put it on my short list of things to do.  Last time I checked he was teaching at Texas A&M Galveston, hopefully continuing to bring great writing on culture, class, etc., to his students.)
     Anyway, back to Jones:  In his article the emergence in industrial England of socially segregated neighborhoods and a reduction in the length of the working day resulted in an alteration of popular leisure practices by the working class.  Formerly, laborers dined and socialize on their short breaks during long days, and after work in evenings, in pubs and halls near their employment; after residential segregation and shorter days laborers socialized more or less at "local" pubs and halls which were closer to their homes.  These public spaces were less segregated by trade, making the discussion of shared interests such as sports, culture, or politics the focus of conversation rather than topics specific to tailors, weavers, cobblers, or other trades, etc.  These public spaces were also much more accommodating to women and the development of a singing culture evolved into a music hall culture with local celebrities, a space which could easily be mobilized for class politics, and ultimately a civic culture among laboring people which, in Jones's melancholic words "was a culture of consolation."
    The music hall culture reminds me of other similar attempts by the working or striving, upwardly mobile middle classes in the 19th century American context to facilitate lyceums, agricultural fairs, granges, or mutual aid and fraternal society halls which offered a shared space for cultural production and political engagement.  Indeed, I fantasize often about recreating something along these lines in the small rural/exurban Texan town of my youth.  If anything, they could use some consolation as the economy pushes more and more of its children into universities and urban lives or alternatively into a slowly sinking, evaporation of a middle class into something lesser, in its economic security and material well being, but also so obviously in the decay of housing, public facilities, retail centers, etc.
     Once, a friend and I had a great conversation about rescuing the hurricane devastated three-screen movie theater from demolition, where we could show art house cinema, hold free public lectures, and other events, but just what the city needed, one more church, got there first.  In truth, we were all talk, with no commitment to a town that offers little more than cheap housing to working commuters.  Again, she and I discussed a similar plan for this wonderful building, and if my memory serves, our renovations definitely included skateboard ramps:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=alvin&ll=29.422917,-95.250714&spn=0.000002,0.001415&hnear=Alvin,+Brazoria,+Texas&gl=us&t=h&z=20&layer=c&cbll=29.422917,-95.250714&panoid=Apd9H-Fme3f-Imnc0oId8g&cbp=12,276.33,,0,-3.07

In the late 1980s or perhaps early 1990s I went to Scout meetings here as a child when this was the local LDS church.  I am not, and was not, LDS, but they sponsored the Scouts in town, and I occasionally had free rein of the building.  Built in 1924 this neo-classical structure looked more like a castle before the pastel paint job, has three floors, and it had, to my unexperienced and mostly unchurched eyes, a magnificent chapel, with old wooden seats in a semi circle, with what I suppose could be called stadium seating, each row a little above the next.  Along the corridors on the two, perhaps three floors were small rooms for classes, offices or counseling, and closets, and other storage spaces.   I recall ancient books, ancient musical instruments, and a decay that was genuinely frightening.  The LDS moved out in the early 1990s into a modern facility and the old church was vacant for most of my teenage years.  At some point it became a Spanish language church, probably Pentecostal, and now I have no idea what is happening within.  But like the movie theater it looms large in my mind as just one other potential civic space where people in just one small rural Texas town could come together for fun, for mutual aid, for political engagement, and perhaps, also, consolation.

Next WTO D-G now down to from 9 candidates to 2...

http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news13_e/gc_rpt_26apr13_e.htm

As I predicted, the next D-G will be from Latin America, and now the member states are left to choose between Mexico's Blanco and Brazil's Azevedo.  The third and final round of consultations begin May 1, and should be completed by the end of that week. Also, on April 24 the WTO released a 40 page report from the Panel on Defining the Future of Trade, which ostensibly represents the outgoing Director-General Pascal Lamy's outlined hopes for the rest of the Doha Round.  Take a look here

 

Dylan Mathews at Wonkblog has his own predictions on the D-G selection.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/04/02/one-of-these-9-people-will-lead-the-world-trade-organization/

Let the Consultations Begin

The WTO has begun officially deliberating about which of the 9 candidates will replace outgoing Director-General Lamy.  It will take most of April if not May, too, as the heads of the General Council, Trade Policy Review Board, and Dispute Settlement Board committees circulate among the 150+ diplomats representing member nations of the WTO General Council.  The goal is to arrive at a consensus as the field of 9 is winnowed down to a final candidate-- don't expect that for another six weeks.

While waiting, you can hear each of the candidate pitch to the General Council here, at the WTO's blog which has video of each candidate's press conference from late January.
D-G Candidate Press Conference Videos

If you recall, I expect one of the two Latin American candidates to take the D-G, but anything is possible as the consensus building effort gets underway.  Below are videos from Brazil's Azevedo.

In the meantime, a recent profile of Indonesian candidate Mari Pangestu in the Guardian's development blog highlighted her optimism that the forum remains useful for addressing agricultural trade barriers and the consequential negative results of protection and subsidy on production and pricing.
The Guardian's Paige McClanahan on Pangestu

Other comment from developing nation papers and blogs that may be worth your time:
Shanghai Daily
New Delhi's Business Standard
Beijing's NZWeek

D-G Lamy Interviewed by India's Business Standard's Nayanima Basu

This week the Indian English-language newspaper, Business Standard, ran an interview of the outgoing Director-General Pascal Lamy.  At several points Lamy is reflective about the his role in the accomplishments of the WTO and expresses a general hope that the institution can be revived as the central forum for trade negotiations.  As reported in earlier posts and noted by Lamy, the volume of negotiations occurring in other forums remains clear evidence that trade liberalization is a high priority of developing nations.   Below is the interview, originally here.

From Nayanima Basu:
"The coming trade ministers’ meeting in Bali, Indonesia, for concluding the Doha Round of talks under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) might finally yield positive outcome in some areas, though an agreement is far from reality, says WTO’s outgoing director-general, Pascal Lamy. In India for the Confederation of Indian Industry Partnership Summit 2013 in Agra, he talks to Nayanima Basu on the talks and other observations of his eight-year tenure. Edited interview:

WTO now has 157 members. Does this add a new dimension to the Doha Round? 
Having more members is a great source of strength for the WTO. In becoming a truly global organisation, its legitimacy and credibility is enhanced. More voices, more perspectives and more points of view lend strength and diversity to our discussions and analysis.

This said, more actors on the stage can also make it more complicated to gain a consensus in complex and politically sensitive negotiations. But this is a price worth paying for greater inclusiveness.

What is the state of negotiations under the Doha Round of talks, entering its 11th year this November? 
Since the December 2011 WTO Ministerial Conference, the negotiations have gained momentum, but selectively. At that meeting, ministers instructed their negotiators to look for those elements of the Doha Round where progress could be made and agreement was conceivable in the short term. This had led to progress and possible agreement in a range of issues such as trade facilitation, some elements of agriculture, issues of importance to least-developed countries, special and differential treatment for developing countries and reform of the dispute settlement system.

Many delegations have expressed a desire to be ready with a set of deliverables for the Bali WTO ministerial conference in December. It is not clear whether such an agreement can be reached or not but the last year has seen a much more constructive and productive approach to the Doha negotiations. Of course, the range of topics on which agreement is conceivable is only a segment of the overall package. We also need to work out how to deliver on the rest of the issues.

Do you see any hope in the Bali ministerial ? Since the talks have gone on so long, it seems countries do not have the same urge or zeal to open their markets any more. 
Many governments have taken the position that we need a ministerial conference in Bali which delivers a substantive outcome. It is incorrect to say countries do not have the same urge or zeal to open their markets. If that were the case, how would you explain the negotiations going on in the Trans Pacific Partnership or launch of the Regional Comprehensive Partnership between Asean, India, Australia, China, Japan, Korea and New Zealand or the China-Japan-Korea trade pact? How would you explain the push to launch negotiations aimed at a transatlantic US-EU agreement?

No, there is no shortage of desire to negotiate trade agreements and this could lead to complications, particularly in the regulatory sphere. The question to ask is why would governments be prepared to open their markets and adopt new rules bilaterally or plurilaterally but not globally?

For the first time in eight years you will not be spearheading the talks any more. How does it feel? 
Eight years to run an organisation as important and complex as WTO is a long time. I have enjoyed it and learnt from it. But very soon it will be time for me to make a contribution in another way.

You have always been credited for keeping the spirit of negotiations alive. Do you think the talks will suffer a setback as you leave WTO? Do you also regret not being able to see a successful conclusion of the Doha Round under your tenure? 
Of course, not being able to see the conclusion of the Doha Round is a disappointment. We were centimetres from reaching a deal in July 2008; but as you know, centimetres can be enough to circumvent an agreement.

This doesn’t mean we have not had negotiating successes. Since September 2005, nine countries have successfully negotiated membership to the WTO and two more will join next month. The government procurement agreement has expanded and covers an additional $100 billion in trade opportunities. Talks on trade facilitation and expanding the information technology agreement may yet yield accord. WTO has opened up to the stakeholders of trade, including civil society. It has been a driving force in helping understand better how trade opening works for welfare in today’s world as opposed to yesterday’s world.

In many ways, WTO as a multilateral system for opening trade fairly is stronger than before. I like to think I have contributed to these positive outcomes but we all know that the DG’s powers are limited. If countries want to negotiate and agree, a DG can facilitate such an outcome; if they don’t, then she or he cannot. As the saying goes, ‘You can lead a horse to the water but you cannot make him drink.’

During the trade negotiations committee meeting in Geneva last month, you had clearly said some of the main stumbling blocks remain and some tough decisions need to be taken in Bali. What are those? 
There are two principal problems to reaching a deal and they are broad, far-reaching and go beyond the scope of the WTO. The first is the massive geopolitical shift underway for some 10 years now. Power is shifting from West to East and shifting quickly. Countries like India, China, Brazil and Indonesia would, quite rightly, like a great share in the management of world affairs. But those who have held power for many decades are ready to accept this only if the emerging countries also take a larger share of the burden.

The question remains, how large is “larger”? So far, negotiators have been unable to define the precise balance between obtaining more power and taking on more responsibilities. This situation has been further complicated by the fact that WTO members do not agree on what precisely does it mean to be a “developing country”. Never before have we had such large and powerful developing countries as India, China, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico and South Africa.

The other major difficulty we have encountered is the economic crisis. It has had the effect of leading many major players to turn their political focus and energy inward. These two phenomena have made concluding the Doha Round far more difficult."

Optimism in Africa, Pessimism in Asia, Pragmatism in Russia...

Amid recent news of the impending change at the top, not all observers are as pessimistic about the WTO’s near future.  With the Indian Express reporting that outgoing Director-General recently advised the next round of negotiators, and by implication the next Director-General, to aim for “low-hanging fruits” instead of holding to grand aspirations or seeking an unforeseen breakthrough between the more than decade long impasse in the WTO others continue to hope for something more it is not clear just what the new D-G’s goals will include.  (The Times of India also noted Lamy’s low expectations.)

GEGAFrica released a notice two weeks ago expressing a genuine (if, sadly, naïve) optimism that reaching some agreements on freer agricultural trade would allow African nations to diversify into export oriented industrialization.  The authors and optimistic readers should be careful not to characterize this hypothetical, future shift as a potential avenue that would allow African nations to convert their vast natural resources along with inexpensive labor into a remarkable industrial capacity rivaling that of East Asia.  And yet, it is fairly easy to envision just such an outcome if African agricultural exporters could access consumer markets in Europe, the Middle East, or Asia.

GEGAFrica is a new source of information online created by collaboration between the South African Treasury, development promotion agencies by the governments of the UK, Germany, and Switzerland.  Other participants include UNECA (UN Economic Commission for Africa), and economic agencies from the governments of Nigeria, Senegal, Ethiopia as well as the Kenyan-based African Economic Resource Consortium.  In short, interested observers of African economic development ought to bookmark GEGAfrica and check in once in a while.  There are especially relevant blogs by African academics commenting on the WTO leadership contest here and here.  Dr. Birkbeck expresses a hope that the new D-G can communicate the imperative need for a revived, future-oriented WTO which can effectively conclude new trade rules which will be of benefit to the developing nations, although she notes that it is a good pool of candidates from the developing world, she frustratingly declines to offer any suggestion on which would likely be most effective.  South Africa Institute of International Affairs Economic Diplomacy Programme intern Azwimpheleli Langalanga evaluates each of the nine candidates, notes disappointment that South Africa did not offer someone for leadership, and notes that the unlikely selection of either of the two African candidates is likely an expected outcome, that this is all preliminary politicking before the selection of leadership for the upcoming UN Conference on Trade and Development, another competing venue for trade negotiations in the absence of substance at the WTO.

Of course, not all observers are as optimistic.  Columbia University Professor of Economics Jagdish Bhagwati, best-selling author of In Defense of Globalization, bewailed the retreat of multilateral trade negotiations into bilateral conferences which inevitably include far fewer participants.  As he notes in an interview, digested by the East Asia Forum, these bilateral negotiations are less messy and allow powerful nations to exert influence on developing nations, hence their preference by developed nations such as the US.  And yet, the complex network of trade agreements made outside multilateral frameworks leave many nations without trade barrier relief, and developing nations fail to acquire the collective benefit of collaborative negotiation.   Bhagwati is critical of failed regional trade agreements such as the ongoing TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership).  The undermining of the WTO by these alternative trade resolution venues is alarming, of course, to the developing nations and Bhagwati is emphatic that smaller nations must work to secure the role of the WTO in future trade negotiations or trade rules will no longer emerge with development priorities or more open access to export markets that developing nations desperately seek.

Despite the optimism of GEGAfrica and real concern about the WTO in the face of inactivity by Bhagwati, perhaps the most amusing note about changing WTO leadership is the frank admission of total ambivalence by the Kremlin.  According to the Moscow Times, Russia’s Economic Development Ministry head of trade negotiations Maxim Medvedkov said: “As a recently acceded member, we will not assume many of the Doha round's commitments to liberalize access to markets for goods and services, but we will be able to take advantage of the obligations of other countries.”  It doesn’t get more honest than that, and if Russia plans on doing nothing to liberalize markets while also benefiting from the WTO’s obligations on other countries then what should developing nations expect from the US?  Well, probably not such an honest response.

Introducing the Next Director-General...

Winter break is over, as is the first week of spring semester classes, so I am jumping back in here to keep an eye on the latest news regarding the Doha negotiations.

The most immediate issue of interest is the completion of the nominating process for the next Director-General to replace Director-General Pascal Lamy who has held the office since September 2005.  The next Director-General will be selected by the WTO out of a pool of nine candidates including who I believe are front-runners from Brazil, Mexico, and Ghana.

On January 9, the WTO released a short list of the candidates with links to their experience in international trade, each of whom merits a little consideration.

From Latin America, Brazil’s Roberto Carvalho de Azevedo, Costa Rica’s Anabel Gonzalez, and Mexico’s Herminio Blanco.  Azevedo has tremendous experience negotiating on behalf of Brazil in the Doha round as well as within the Mercosur negotiations.  Gonzalez held similar posts on behalf of Costa Rica in its negotiations with the US within CAFTA negotiations and within Costa Rica’s Ministry of Foreign Trade.  Blanco has served as Mexico’s Minister of Foreign Trade and was a chief negotiator of NAFTA.  With the decade long stalemate, observers despair of any global agreement finding any resolution to trade disagreements, but instead predict a continuation of bilateral and multilateral agreements in multipolar world.  The US remains the strongest of those poles, with Canada, Japan, and Europe traditionally possessing enough leverage to negotiate their own agreements.   Of all candidates, these Latin American trade delegates have exactly the experience in bilateral and multilateral trade negotiations with the US which will make them strong candidates for selection this spring.  Narrowing it down, Brazil’s economic power and Blanco’s experience make it likely that Azevedo or Blanco will be high on the list of successors for Lamy.

From Africa, Ghana’s Alan John Kwadwo Kyerematen and Kenya’s Amina C. Mohamed join the pool of candidates.  The WTO has not yet had an African or Latin American Director-General, and I would be more optimistic about that changing if Nigeria or South Africa proposed a responsible candidate.   With GDP’s at $39 and $33 billion respectively, Ghana and Kenya would truly represent the developing world in a position of leadership at the WTO.   From 2001 to the recent financial collapse, Ghana has also liberalized trade, reducing tariffs and subsidies, and witnessed fairly robust growth, progress noted here by the WTO in 2008.  Kyerematen is credited with overseeing these trade liberalizations in the early 2000s.  Kenya has similarly shown steady growth since 2001, despite the collapse in 2008, and is now growing at 4-6% annually.  Unlike Ghana, Kenya’s trade liberalization appears to be mired by greater bureaucracy and Kenya has also expressed greater frustrations with the WTO and has entered bilateral agreements with India, who share the frustrations with lack of access to international agriculture markets.  Mohamed represented Kenya at the UN and continues to serve Kenya as an Assistant Secretary General with responsibilities for the UN Environmental Program in Nairobi. Neither of these candidates appears particularly strong on trade negotiations.

From Asia, Indonesia’s Mari Elka Pangestu and Korea’s Taeho Bark join the nominees.   An economist with a PhD from UC-Davis Pangestu lectures at the University of Indonesia.  With seven years’ experience as the Minister of Trade for Indonesia Pangestu is now the Minister of Tourism, certainly critical to Indonesia’s economy, but would probably be of greater service returning to issues of international trade.  As one academic to another: I am rooting for you, Minister Pangestu!  PhDs of the world unite!  (Although, if honest, I remain generally convinced that Azevedo or Blanco will get the position.)

Tim Groser of New Zealand and Ahmad Thougan Hindawi of Jordan are the final two nominees.  If New Zealand sounds at first like an odd place from which the next WTO Director-General will emerge, it is worth noting that from 1999 to 2002, New Zealander Mike Moore held the Director-General post.  All respect to Tim Groser aside, this is strong enough for me to remain skeptical that the position will return to a New Zealander, but with a GDP of $142 billion New Zealand is far smaller an economy than Mexico, Nigeria, Turkey, South Africa.  Of course, it is a much smaller nation, and it has had trade difficulties in a South Pacific dominated by China, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, and Japan where it hopes for more open markets for exports of dairy and mutton as well as iron and timber.  Tim Groser also proposes to make climate change– of tremendous concern to island nations of the South Pacific– to the forefront of Doha deliberations.   Like Kyerematen of Ghana, Jordan’s Hindawi oversaw his nations liberalization of trade and reform of domestic economic policies in conformance with WTO prerogatives in the early and mid2000s, having served as Jordan’s Assistant Secretary General of the Ministry of Industry and Trade.  Another PhD in the pool, this time with advanced degrees in manufacturing, Hindawi also has extensive experience with Arab mining and has served as a consulatant in Dubai.

The WTO members will be making a selection from this pool before May, and when the nominees is selected I will return to this topic and give them greater scrutiny, but for now a comment on the field: These candidates share a general commitment to the expansion of economies in the developing world, an increase which optimistically will improve the material well-being of their citizens, and most of them have shared in the recent work of policy reform at home and negotiation abroad.  No European or developed-nation nominee means a genuine possibility of seeing leadership from the developing world at the apex of this global institution and, in the context of the Doha round’s commitment to development this could portend a breakthrough for the more poor nations in the world.  (With that being said, past D-Gs have originated from New Zealand and Thailand, as well as Ireland, so I must note that this will not be the first time a developing nation D-G held the post, and I leave it to the vast Irish diaspora to let me know if Ireland today is developing or developed.)

And yet, many observers fear that the WTO’s inaction for a decade has led to a pragmatic resurrection of bilateral and multilateral trade negotiations, eclipsing the WTO. This has meant the return of the developing nations to a position without collective leverage in their negotiations with the US, China, or Europe making the WTO increasingly irrelevant.  Can a leader from the developing world shape the WTO into a force in the next four years which can compel the developed nations to address their very real concerns about trade barriers, climate change, or an increasing polarization between the developed and developing worlds?

Managing Bali, Managing Expectations

In the absence of any breaking news on the Doha Development Agenda, I wish to take the time to look more closely at the December 7, 2012 statement by Director-General Pascal Lamy.  Links to audio and transcript are here.

After thanking attendees, Lamy begins managing expectations for the 2013 Bali meeting with a now familiar expression in his prefatory comment that “we still have a long road ahead of us.”  Lamy then reminded us that the list of extant items from Ministerial Conference 8 (MC8) which concluded in Geneva in December 2011 was long, that since January the WTO has made little progress, and earlier this year sought to clarify that there was little hope of closing the Doha Round, now in its twelfth year, anytime soon.

Lamy however is optimistic that a positive momentum this summer and fall, reviewed at this now closed MC9 last week can be continued in the spring.  Trade issues, particularly regarding agricultural goods, have been stalled for years, but the other half of the DDA is development, and here Lamy has reason to be a bit more optimistic.

Perhaps pragmatically, but frustrating to anyone who would rather see resolution and action instead of more committee dithering, Lamy reminds delegates as they receive instructions from their national governments or work in the various committees of the umbrella Trade Negotiations Committee that they keep three principles in mind.  These are worth some elaboration:  First, strive for practical solutions not impossibilities.  Second, build consensus before bringing the problem to the negotiations.  Third, be nice.

Now, principle one, in Lamy’s words:  “First, we need to work towards what is reasonably doable.  Members should be realistic in their demands, take into account other Members’ red lines and stay clear of what are known to be unattainable objectives.”  This is a message to think small, ask for little, and keep in mind that many negotiating members will simply never budge from policies which are narrowly beneficial to that one particular nation.  Of course, it requires little reading between the lines to infer that Lamy is referring not to recalcitrant small nations, which could not impose their policies, but is instead referring to powerful nations like the United States or India which have outlined inflexible parameters on trade in the past several years.  Do not ask for what you cannot have, Lamy is telling members.  Save time, avoid disappointment, and keep the negotiations moving in productive areas.  Now, I don’t want to be too dismissive of Lamy’s pragmatism here, both the U.S., India, and occasionally other large nations have shown little willingness to compromise, and this advice by Lamy may well be very practical and sadly honest, but I would much prefer robust talks about every members’ grievance.

On principle two, again in Lamy’s words: “Second, when advancing a proposal, it is the proponents’ responsibility to build consensus around it.  Make sure that you are working towards convincing the other Members, not yourselves.”  It seems eminently practical that members arrive at these short term conferences with much of the heavy lifting on their pertinent issue already done in bilateral and multilateral talks.  Again, it seems very practical not to expect a productive conference to be the initial site of enormous amounts of deliberation and negotiation, all of which ought to be completed in advance of the next DDA conference.  And yet this practical advice can have the effect of inhibiting the introduction of valid, new problems or concerns from member states.  “If not now, when?” may well become the bigger criticism of the failure of the Doha Round to address development priorities which have emerged since 2001 as members seek other venues for negotiation within the G20 or UN, or within national agencies such as the U.S.’s Department of Commerce agency, the International Trade Administration.

And on principle three, Lamy pleas: “Third, avoid being confrontational.  Any proposal should not be framed as a kind of take-it-or-leave-it position.  The negotiating process entails a trade-off between concessions and demands.  Be flexible and work together with other Members and around their sensitivities to achieve a common understanding.”  Practical, perhaps even this ought to be unnecessary to remind members.  Be nice. Meet in the spirit of productivity.   This plea for polite pragmatism is a, let me say, polite rebuke to member delegates in past MC and TNC meetings who have been anything but non-confrontational.  Part of me wishes the member representatives were exactly as Lamy requests, polite, but considering the arcane nature of the delegations, I for one also welcome a little drama.  It bears repeating, that there is inevitably a tension between achieving practical results in polite negotiations against the drama of passionate engagement on divisive political agendas by diverse representatives.  I would not like to see a prioritization of politeness undercut the passions of those striving in the WTO to facilitate genuine progress on developing nations.

It certainly is disappointing that Lamy is steadily undermining optimism about the DDA meetings as well as managing expectations.  Again, from his statement at the closing of the MC9: “Nor should we create unrealistic expectations. The main stumbling blocks of the DDA are still standing and many of the toughest nuts will likely not be cracked by the time Ministers meet in Bali.”  Many, including U.K. P.M. David Cameron, have expressed skepticism that the forum even serves a purpose, and if the WTO Director-General has little faith that the next biannual meeting will resolve much, then why not ask if there is any reason to even continue?

On the Doha Round

Welcome!  I am reminded by this past Saturday’s closing event at the UNFCCC Doma Climate Change Conference that Doma is home to another piece of unfinished international business: the WTO’s eleven year long and occasionally drama filled Doha Round.

A little by way of background:  The Bretton Woods convention convened at the close of WW2 and established a tariffs and trade forum known by its acronym, GATT, where nations could peacefully negotiate trade related grievances under U.S. leadership.  Like the UN and NATO, and other components of the Bretton Woods system such as the IMF and the World Bank, this organization rested upon the shared aspirations of the Atlantic nations Allied in the fight against fascism, principally the U.S., U.K., Canada, and France, but also would later include postwar Germany and Japan.  These nations formed the essential core of global capitalist trade in the decades following the war and met, along with many other nations, in a series of eight GATT sponsored rounds, some lasting a few months, others many years.  By the 1980s and early ‘90s a wave of challenges to the GATT framework, mostly from developing nations, led to GATT's evolution into the WTO.

This evolution occurred in the eighth and final GATT round, the Uruguay Round, which lasted more than 7 years– then the longest running forum, until the current seemingly never-ending Doha Round astonished everyone with its inability to resolve anything this past eleven years.  By the early 1990s post-Communist nations in Eastern Europe and developing nations in Latin America and Asia demanded greater democratic participation in the biannual ministerial meetings and in the larger GATT framework.  By 1994, the concluding Uruguay Round laid the foundation for the inauguration of its newly established successor, the WTO.  Since 1995 the WTO has continued to hold biannual meetings, most famously rocked by protests in 1999 at its Seattle meeting.

Ironically, the protests delayed the WTO’s agenda on poverty relief and reforms of trade that were central to the aspirations of developing nations.  This 1999 program would have been in concert with the Millennium Development Goals championed by the UN as well as a host of other multilateral efforts at promoting economic development and poverty reduction in the regions which had pushed for reform.  That agenda came to the fore in the 2001 meeting at Doha, Qatar when the WTO opened the ninth round of trade negotiations.

The crucial disagreement between developed nations who have traditionally steered the trade negotiations and those in the developing world which seek greater democratic decision making rests almost entirely on agriculture policy, and therefore, this tremendous rift is something that will almost never catch the broader public’s attention.  Developing nations, particularly India, but also exporters in Latin America and Africa, wish the U.S. would embrace free trade of agricultural goods on the international market by ending subsidies on domestic agricultural products which act as non-tariff trade barriers and are obstacles to the entry of agricultural goods from developing nations.  In 2008, Congress– over President Bush’s veto– extended federal subsidies to large agricultural interests through an increase in spending on food stamps and direct subsidies to farmers.  Agricultural interests lobbied for these subsidies while also asserting an unwillingness to see domestic policy subordinated to the growing pressure of international trade bodies, even if it was a repudiation of what observers would assume the U.S., particularly a Republican administration, would welcome: growing free trade sentiment in the developing world.

Despite progress and commitments made during the 2001 Doha, 2003 Cancun, and 2005 Hong Kong meetings, the disagreements over agriculture thoroughly derailed the 2007 biannual meeting in Potsdam.  As a result, the Doha Round of negotiations has been stalled for many years, frankly out of developing nations’ frustrations not just in the WTO from 2001 to 2008, but with the Bush administrations’ unilateralism in the mid- to late-2000s on issues as far ranging as the Kyoto protocol, landmine ban treaty, international criminal court, and the administrations bypassing of the UN over the war in Iraq.

Much has changed since 2007, however, when negotiations over U.S. agricultural subsidies led to a stalemate between India and the United States.  First, and not unimportantly, the unilateral policies of an administration which rejected the Kyoto Protocol, the landmine ban treaty, International Criminal Court jurisdiction, and a willingness to wage war without UN sanction is gone.  Nations offended by American unilateralism in the Bush years are now dealing with an administration vastly different in tone, if, sadly, not much different on policy.  Second, since 2008 developing nations such as Brazil, India, China, Russia, and South Africa have begun cooperatively applying pressure at the UN, G-summits, and WTO.  This BRIC alliance, in concert with sympathetic nations such as Turkey, South Africa, and Mexico, have succeeded in achieving another substantial reform of the large global institutions akin to the GATT-to-WTO evolution:  the G8 is now the G20, no longer based on that old post-WW2 Atlantic kinship between the U.S., U.K., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan but instead opening up to the largest 20 economies, now including developing nations such as Mexico, Argentina, China, Indonesia, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, as well as the smaller nations of Europe via the membership of the EU.

The WTO met in Geneva last year amid general pleas by many world leaders to see the Doha Round to some kind of conclusion, and yet just this week Director-General Lamy has expresses a probably unfounded expectation that the 2013 meeting in Bali will resolve these longstanding issues.  That the developed nations such as India, now allied with others who desire a multi-polar world, have not caved into the inevitability of unequal access to global markets for agricultural goods is a testament to the resolve of the world’s largest democracy to remain steadfast in their disagreement with the world’s richest democracy.

In the following weeks I expect to relate unfolding current news on the Doha negotiations in anticipation of the Bali meeting, look back on the history of the disagreements, and also take a close look at a decades’ worth of optimistic commentary that the large developing nations may well steer global institutions such as the WTO, the UN, and the WB toward addressing the concerns of the world’s most impoverished.

Thinking About Syria

Three really informative long reads on Syria.

Max Rodenbeck's review of a clutch of recent books on Syria, from the NYRB

Paul Berman's New Republic piece on the collapse of Baathism in Syria

Reddit Q&A with Al Jazeera's Andrew Simmons