Agriculture Negotiations at the WTO: ‘Modalities Phase Update Report
This paper is the first report of series III detailing the developments in the agriculture trade negotiations currently underway at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The report series is being prepared by the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD).
This report, issued in September 2002, offers an update on the recent talks held in the so-called ‘modalities phase’2, or phase III, of the ongoing WTO agriculture negotiations. It will further address several other issues – both inside and outside the WTO – which might have impacts on the WTO agriculture talks. Since the beginning of the ‘modalities’ phase in early-April, it appeared that some progress in the negotiations has indeed been made, at least in terms of harmonising diverging negotiating stances within the main groupings in the Membership. Therefore, working along the three categories “cautious” group (i.e. the ‘Friends of Multifunctionality’), the “ambitious” group (Cairns Group and – to some extend – the US) and the “special consideration” group (i.e. the Like-Minded Group, African Group, economies in transition, etc.) proves more and more handy as the negotiations proceed. Furthermore, WTO newcomer China has now positioned itself in the negotiations, thereby acting somehow as a mediator between the three camps outlined above. Especially in the market access debate, it was also interesting to see how “cautious” Members such as the EC and Switzerland are increasingly trying to bring issues related to precaution, labelling and geographical names (“indications”) into the agriculture talks inter alia via the assertion of agricultural non-trade concerns (NTCs). This negotiating strategy aimed at trading-off expanded market access and reduced subsidies against WTO Members’ concessions relating to contentious food safety, consumer information and intellectual property right (IPR) issues could prove a real stumbling bloc in the current agriculture negotiations.
This report is divided into four sections:
• Section 1 is a brief introduction setting the agriculture negotiations in the overall context of activities at the WTO.
• Section 2 focuses on the themes within phase III of the negotiations that have been identified by UKWCA as showing most significance for its recent work on influencing European trade policy-making, providing descriptive and analytical detail of expressed positions.
• Section 3 is aimed at providing an overview on agriculture-related policy making processes in relevant fora within and outside the WTO.
Section 4 looks ahead at the emerging issues in connection with the future negotiations in agriculture during the ‘modalities phase’.
The methodology used in compiling this report combined comprehensive in-house analytical work as well as extensive outreach to country delegates based in Geneva and representatives of local non-governmental organisations. Taking account of the fact that the negotiations in the current ‘modalities’ phase are largely held orally and proceed on an issue-by-issue basis, this report groups in its presentation Members’ positions around the single subjects discussed, instead of focussing on a proposal description as done in the previous reports. Nevertheless, the few (mostly informal) papers tabled during the recent negotiating session have been summarised in various text boxes included in the main text. The ‘quick references guides’ used in the previous report have not been included in this paper so as to shorten the paper as well as to provide more space for other useful references. The non-papers used in writing this report could not be annexed for reasons of confidentiality.