Agriculture
WTO negotiations on agriculture and developing countries
The modalities on which developing countries can rely in WTO agricultural negotiations
Authors:
A. Hoda; A. Gulati
Publisher:
International Food Policy Research Institute , 2008
To aid developing-country negotiators, the book "WTO Negotiations on Agriculture and Developing Countries" offers an authoritative analysis of the rules and modalities on which governments of developing countries (DCs) can rely. The book also suggests a negotiating strategy for DCs. This brief introduces that book to the readers.
The book suggests that DCs must make a fundamental shift in their approach in the ongoing Doha Round negotiations. Indeed, they need to do the following:
- focus less on special and differential (S&D) treatment and more on equal treatment
- propose deep reforms in agriculture that are designed, to the maximum extent possible, for uniform application to the entire WTO membership
- work to moderate the distance between the general and S&D levels of treatment
- insist on capping tariffs at a reasonable level
- limit their demand for flexibility for special products, and confine it to a small proportion of agricultural tariff lines
- press to make the new Special Safeguards Mechanism simple and provide for automatic recourse to safeguard measures once the price or volume triggers are reached, without any requirement of injury test
- emphasis on achieving a deep cut in overall trade-distorting support (OTDS) to bring it as close as possible to 5% of the total value of production in all WTO members
- persist that decoupled income support and other direct payments, which have been exempted under the Green Box, must be limited only to small farmers
- lean toward a stricter approach in the negotiations on disciplines on export financing support, exporting trading enterprises, and international food aid
- ask for different formula for reducing tariffs, in terms of depth of cut as well as period of implementation
- revive S&D provisions with respect to export competition
- oppose reviving the "peace clause"
