Training Workshop on WTO, Trade and Sustainable Development: A Southern Agenda. April 20, 2005

Background

Cancun and Doha negotiations stalled after the Cancun ministerial. Bolstered by China’s joining their ranks, the increasing assertiveness of the South grounded the Northern juggernaut to a halt. As a consequence of the deadlock, the US continued to push its alternative track trade policy that is to engage in bilateral and regional trade agreements. However, while current US and EU trade policies may be a cause for concern, an element of posturing is built into the recent moves. The message quite clearly is that the Doha Round needs to be put back on track and that multilateralism in trade negotiations suits both the North and the South.

Doha fundamentally changed the rules of the game on trade and environment. The issue is no longer whether trade and environment are linked. Instead, the question is how best to address environmental problems within a rules-based multilateral trading system. The challenge for the South in this changed scenario is to craft a Southern agenda which can counterbalance – as well as benefit from – asymmetries related to affluence, bargaining power, science, technology and institutional capacity.

The Negotiating Premises

The workshop will identify the following negotiating premises:

• Persisting with sustainable development
• Re-assessing special and differential treatment
• Recognizing market realities
• Developing regional links

Southern Strategy

Clearly, the South needs to persist with its stance that the environment cannot be divorced from its broader context of sustainable development. In the exclusive focus on inter-generational justice, the environmental movement has left out intra-generational justice that sustainable development reintroduced. To attain sustainable development or more specifically to eradicate poverty, a goal endorsed by the preamble to the WTO treaty, poor countries need resources. Trade must serve this end using inbuilt mechanisms within WTO, such as special differential treatment (SDT) and market access, and also by ensuring that trade is not immiserizing.

The South also needs to understand its negotiating positions that the North more often than not negotiates on behalf of multinational corporations (MNCs). Understanding that they are negotiating with “the profit motive” should inject a dose of realism into the positions adopted. Also, the South has little room for maneuver when it comes to dealing with the private sector. Increasingly, Northern business entities are being required by their boards/shareholders to work only with firms that meet certain ‘voluntary’ environmental and quality standards. The only option Southern exporters have is to conform or lose markets.

Who should participate?

Middle level officials and mangers working on the subject who would like to enhance their understanding of the issues involved.

Workshop Objectives

• To identify the key issues in ongoing negotiations with regards to specific agreements in WTO.
• To discuss and identify suitable approaches for the South to adopt for a purposeful outcome of the Doha round and post Cancun Ministerial Scenario.
• To expose the participants to the nature of WTO negotiations.
  

Workshop Contents

Session 1

• Overview and Standards
• Agreement on Agriculture

Session 2

• Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights
• General Agreement on Trade in Services

Session 3

• Group Exercise (simulated WTO negotiation). Developing country government and civil society representatives on one side of the table, WTO delegates on the other side.
• Highlighting manageable objectives.

Facilitators

Dr. Shaheen Rafi Khan, currently a research fellow at SDPI, earned his Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University in the United States. He joined SDPI in December 1997, as a consultant to the resident secretariat of the IUCN Commission on Economic, Environmental and Social Policy (CEESP). Dr. Khan's research covers water resource management, deforestation, biodiversity conservation, climate change and trade and environment.

Prior to joining SDPI, Dr. Khan worked at USAID and the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC), both as a program and project manager. He has carried out various consulting assignments in Pakistan and abroad for the World Bank, the UNDP, USAID, the Asian Development Bank, ICIMOD and National Environment Trust. He is also a member of the Regional and International Networking Group (RING).

Dr. Khan has authored and co-authored numerous research articles and reports on economic and environmental topics including wheat pricing, structural adjustment, export market structure and import substitution, protected areas management, large dams, climate change, poverty and environment, environmental security and environmental policy.

Moeed Yusuf, earned his Master of Arts in International Relations from Boston University, USA and Bachelor of Business Administration from Shorter College Rome, Italy. Currently, he is working on political economy considerations in Pakistan’s governance system in SDPI and also conducting studies on: Subsidies under WTO for the International Institute for Sustainable Development, Canada, perverse incentives in the forest sector for the Institute for Environmental Studies, Netherlands, and implications of formalizing Pakistan-India trade for the World Bank, Islamabad. He is the Trade Knowledge Network Coordinator for South Asia and is actively involved in the capacity building of young researchers.

Prior to joining SDPI, Moeed worked at The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC as a researcher. He has worked with South Asia expert, Dr. Stephen P. Cohen, on India-Pakistan relations and the prospects of economic diplomacy in South Asia. Specific research topics included: Pakistan-India relations, prospects of Pakistan-India trade, economic dimension to the Kashmir conflict, and Pakistan’s economy. He frequently contributes to international newspapers/magazines.

Training Venue

The training workshop will be organized at Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), Islamabad.

Time

09:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Participation

By invitation only.

Cancellation/Postponement

SDPI reserves the right to cancel or postpone the workshop, if circumstances require. In that event, SDPI will ensure that registered participants are informed as soon as possible.