WTO to talk COVID, fishing subsidies in Geneva
June 12, 2022
Over 100 trade ministers flocked to Geneva on Sunday for the first World Trade Organization (WTO) summit in years, as the global organization faces a deep internal crisis.
WTO chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said the world has changed and has grown more complex since the last ministerial conference in 2017. Speaking at a news conference on Sunday, she pointed to the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and the food and energy challenges as forming a "polycrisis" facing humanity.
What's on the agenda?
The organization is set to discuss several key proposals during the four-day meeting, including a push to waive the WTO's patent protection on COVID-19 vaccines. Delegates are also expected to consider reforming fishing subsidies, which activists say benefit big-fleet companies and drive chronic overfishing of the world's oceans. The WTO's 164 member states have been unable to find consensus on the issue for over 20 years. Additionally, the EU is hoping to push through a food security package as the war in Ukraine cripples grain exports.
Okonjo-Iweala said she was "cautiously optimistic" that one or two motions would pass and that she would consider that "a success."
"The road will be bumpy and rocky. There may be a few landmines on the way," the Nigerian told reporters on Sunday in Geneva.
What is the biggest problem facing the WTO?
The organization has faced harsh criticism from Washington in recent years. The US is pushing for China, now the world second-largest economy, to lose its status as a developing country and the right to certain exceptions this status allows.
As a means of exacting pressure on the WTO, the US has been blocking appointments of new judges in the WTO's appellate body. The years-long campaign has left the court with only one judge out of seven, as the rest retired. In practice, it means that any dispute brought before the WTO can now be stretched out indefinitely by one side simply filing an appeal.
What do representatives of German business say?
German business associations have also called for the WTO to be reformed ahead of the latest summit. Volker Treier from DIHK (Association of German chambers of Industry and Commerce) said the organization's rules were "increasingly eroding" and were not keeping up with "technological and global economic changes."
Treier, who is in charge of DIHK's economic affairs outside of Germany, said that the first priority would be to reestablish the dispute resolving mechanism.
Ulrich Ackermann from VDMA (Germany's Mechanical Engineering Industry Association) also called for the appellate court to restart work.
"Otherwise, the WTO is in danger of sinking into irrelevance," he said.
dj/kb (EPD, dpa, AFP, Reuters)