| Date | February 14, 2008 |
|---|---|
| Speaker | Brett WILLIAMS(Senior Lecturer and Programme Director, Public International Economic Law, Sydney Centre for International Law, Faculty of Law, University of Sydney) |
| Moderator | TAMURA Akihiko(Consulting Fellow, RIETI / Director (Dispute Settlement), Multilateral Trade System Department, Trade Policy Bureau, METI) |
| Materials |
Summary
I have distributed a paper on the July 2007 Falconer Draft text for the Doha Round WTO negotiations on Agriculture (See Brett G Williams, "The Falconer Draft Text for the Doha Round WTO Negotiations on Agriculture - A 'Ha'porth of Tar' to Save the Vessel from Sinking or Just a Dab of paint on an Irreparably Broken Hull?" (2007) 30(2) UNSWLJ 368-408 and the version available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1032484 ). I have also distributed a copy of slides for today's talk. The paper deals with the version of the Falconer draft text that was released on July 17, 2007. Chairman Falconer released a new draft on 8 February 2008 (6 days ago). The slides contain a number of matters in bold text to indicate that they are new elements of the 8 February text (TN/AG/W/4/Rev.1) which were not in the July 17 text (TN/AG/W/4). Note that the slides contain square bracketed numbers wherever they refer to numbers that are shown in square brackets in the draft text (which denotes that the numbers have not been agreed upon).
Today I will not cover everything in the paper or the slides. I will make some general observations about the function of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the problems with applying the GATT to agriculture and the reforms in the Uruguay Round. Then in describing the draft text, I will concentrate on the negotiation on market access and, to a lesser extent, on domestic support, and will do so with some emphasis on explaining how this text would address previous problems and would continue the process of reform started in the Uruguay Round. The essential point of my presentation is that reducing barriers to market access is a much more important function of the GATT than that of reducing domestic support for agriculture. It can be observed from these negotiations on market access that the parties are making exceptions for themselves, instead of trying to reinforce the integrity of the rules on market access. On the other hand, the parties are negotiating very tight rules on domestic support. Putting it bluntly, the negotiation on domestic support is completely over the top: there is no need for all these extra rules and they will achieve only very small welfare gains, if any. On the other hand, the extent of the exceptions to the rules on market access would seriously undermine the ability of the GATT to deliver large welfare gains in this sector. (continued...)
for full text in PDF format [PDF:123KB]
*This summary was compiled by RIETI Editorial staff with substantial contribution from Dr. Brett Williams.
*This summary was compiled by RIETI Editorial staff.
