Divide and rule: the EU and US response to developing country alliances at the WTO

This report revisits the Cancún Ministerial Conference of the WTO, and explores the new balance of forces which presented itself at the conference, and exposes the threats and pressures which developing countries faced at the Ministerial, as well as the strategies which have been used against them since.

The report points out that the Ministerial itself saw the emergence of several strong groupings of developing countries, both in response to the negotiating positions of developed countries and in furtherance of their own specific aims. However, developed countries reacted very negatively. As described in this report in detail they threatened with cuts to aid budgets, loss of trade preferences and personal attacks in order to undermine their cohesion. Since Cancún, the EU and USA have continued their attacks and developed more sophisticated strategies for overcoming developing country opposition and imposing their will on the WTO. The central strand to this strategy is to turn developing countries against each other, breaking off individual countries from broader coalitions and offering preferential treatment to favoured groupings if they distance themselves from more critical voices at the WTO.

The Report therefore calls on all WTO member states:

• to address the negotiating procedures of the WTO as a matter of urgency, including the preparation and conduct of ministerials
• to ensure that all meetings pertaining to WTO affairs are open to the entire membership, and announced publicly and minuted
• to set up an independent inquiry into the role of the WTO Secretariat during the Cancún Ministerial, with special reference to its part in the production of the second revision of the Ministerial Text
• to disclose all written advice governments receive from industrial groupings and others in relation to WTO negotiations, as well as all agreements and payments from private sector bodies, trade unions, NGOs and other groups
• WTO members must undertake to refrain from using political, economic or personal threats against other members in order to manufacture consensus in international trade negotiations.