The World Trade Organization’s Fifth Ministerial meeting held in Cancun, Mexico during September 10-14, 2003 though could not bring about any breakthrough, yet certain interest groups branded it as failure while some others described it a new beginning for new issues into the WTO trade negotiations.

The WTO watchers know that 4th similar Ministerial in Doha ended up with a Bush’s war against terrorism like slogan of “either you were with free traders or terrorists”. But at least this time in Cancun, this slogan did not work and the developing world literally did not allow the gangsters at the “fifth ministerial” to manipulate the agenda and the proceedings. Thus the big powers, the gangsters themselves assumed that the meeting ended in a failure. The developing countries finally said ‘no’ to a top-down mode of negotiation and agreement with respect to reforms in agriculture, trade, market access, improvement for non-agricultural items, and the launch of negotiations on competition, investment and procurement, the so-called Singapore Issues. The unity in the negotiating positions of the developing countries, forged strictly on economic lines, was a surprise to many on both sides of the North-South divide.

From day one of the Cancun meeting, the WTO member nations disagreed on practically all items on the agenda. The European Union (EU), the main mover of inclusion of the new issues in the negotiations was more interested in bundling the issues of competition policy, investment, trade facilitation and transparency in government procurement (the Singapore issues) without actually giving up its ‘mothering’ of the agricultural lobby back home. Despite the EU and Japan trying their best to start negotiations on these issues, the G-21 (the group of developing countries led by India, Brazil, China and South Africa) made it clear that they were not ready to start negotiations on any of the new issues unless there was tangible progress in the areas of agriculture, implementation issues and review of provisions for Special and Differential (S&D) treatments for developing countries. Pakistan joined the G-21 at a later stage in the conference.

First discussed in 1996 in Singapore (from which it gets its name), these issues were again brought up in Doha in 2001, after the failure of the Seattle Ministerial in 1999. However, India took a strict position and it was on the insistence of India that the Doha Ministerial Declaration mandated the members to decide in Cancun by “explicit consensus” whether or not to start negotiations on the Singapore issues. Following the Doha procedures, the chair of the conference appointed group facilitators or “friends of the chairs” who had to moderate the discussion and report back to Heads of Delegations (HOD). The facilitator for the Singapore issues, Canadian Trade Minister, Pierre Pettigrew, reported to the HODs that there was no consensus among the members and suggested that the way forward should be to find a compromise solution. While the majority of the developing countries remained firm on their stance, the EU continued to insist that negotiations had already been launched in this area in the Doha Declaration, and did not agree to the definition of “explicit consensus”. It was clear to many that the EU appeared to be backing out of its previous commitment.

The G-21 kept demanding the withdrawal of agriculture subsidies in rich countries. In a press memo, the Chairman of the US Committee on Finance expressed disappointment with eight G-21 members that were in the process of seeking Free Trade Agreements (FTA) with the US. “This makes me question their interest in pursuing the strong market access commitments required to conclude the FTA with the US”, he noted. This was an indirect threat that proponents of G-21 may be deprived of the FTA with the United States. There were reports that the EU and USA tried their best to split the G-21 members, but their efforts did not seem enough.

While the outcome of the ministerial was seen as a victory for civil society groups and representatives from hundreds of NGOs, at the Cancun Convention Centre, NGO representatives were not allowed to enter the premises where the actual negotiations were taking place- not even as observers. All that these groups could do was to organise parallel sessions at the NGO centre (Hotel Sierra, a kilometer and a half away from the Convention Centre). The conditions at Cancun were worse than they were at Doha. The maximum number of representatives from each NGO was restricted to three, and only one representative was allowed to enter the Convention Centre at any given time. However, civil society organizations did manage to protest during the inaugural session of the Cancun meeting.

On day one, about two-dozen representatives stood up during WTO Director-General, Supa-chai Panitchpakdi’s, inaugural speech with tape-sealed mouths and placards critical of the WTO and its procedures. Chants of protest greeted Panitchpakdi’s insistence that WTO was working for the benefit of developing countries. Amidst the civil society protests, more than 10,000 farmers were stopped by the local police and were not allowed to enter the Conference Zone during this protest, a South Korean farmer, Lee Kyong Hae, read out his protest statement and stabbed himself in the chest. He was later pronounced dead at the local Cancun hospital. Hae’s sacrifice was a demonstration enough to the conference participants that WTO can be catastrophic for small farmers, many of whom cannot compete with the heavily subsidized commercial farming of the USA and the EU.

The Mexican Foreign Minister, Ernesto Luis Derbez, also the Conference Chair, felt that though the conference was being closed without an agreement on the Ministerial Text, this outcome was actually a reflection of the transparency in the WTO system. Director-General, Supachai Panitchpakdi, on the other hand, described the failure as a huge loss for the developing countries and poor nations.

Not surprisingly, the developing world was seen to be asking for the moon. The EU Trade Commissioner, Pascal Lamy repeated his controversial remarks about the WTO (delivered earlier at Seattle) to the effect that the failure of Cancun negotiations once again proved that the WTO was a medieval organization. To him, the EU had gone out of its way to be flexible so as to accommodate the developing countries, an act of magnanimity that was not reciprocated by the other side. “They (the developing countries) attended the meeting with a set-mind and never wanted to get the benefit of the EU’s generous offers”, observed Lamy. He proposed a revamping of the “decision making process” in the WTO. The US Trade Representative, Robert Zolleick claimed that US had done its best to broker a deal, but he accepted that failure of the Cancun meeting was the collective responsibility of all concerned and remained reluctant to put the blame on any single party.

The positive outcome from Cancun was the inclusion of Cambodia and Nepal, raising the WTO’s membership to 148. The rest of the agenda items were derailed due to the failure of the talks. In a sense, this derailment reflects significant changes in the international geo-political environment. The Doha conference was successful largely due to the effects of 11 September 2001. In Doha, it was a question of being either in favour of trade liberalization or being on the side of the ‘terrorists’. This time the developing countries backed by civil society protests, both in their respective capitals as well as in Cancun, were able to neutralize the pressure tactics of the powerful trading blocs.

There are many questions in mind now after what has been described as the failure of Cancun ministerial. What is next? The agendas have been sent back to Geneva, and it is left to negotiators at the WTO headquarters to find a consensus on starting the negotiations on the Singapore issues as well as on the modalities of the Agreement on Agriculture by 15 December this year. Will the members feel sufficiently equipped to negotiate on these issues in Geneva in bilateral talks? Will it be easy for the developing countries to pass on quick feedback as well as instructions from their capitals to their negotiators in Geneva? Will the negotiators be invited to attend the exclusive meetings of the working groups in Geneva?

The answers to these and many more questions will determine the real meaning of the failure of Cancun. When Cancun proved to be the scene of the unity among economically weak nations, Geneva will prove how effective and sustainable this unity can be in the face of certain attempts by the EU and the US to split the developing countries. If the WTO is to survive, it must remain a rule-based organization working on the will of the majority of the members. That is not the case today, and Cancun’s failure represented yet another attempt to make it so.

Islamabad shuns away civil society representatives
The official delegations from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and many African countries included the representatives from civil society organizations who were able to give inputs to their governmental counterparts. Pakistan’s Ministry of Commerce ignored the offers by civil society representatives who wanted to be the part of official delegation. This was not a cost-cutting measure either, because the representatives who had offered their services already had their accreditation with the WTO to attend the Cancun Conference and had pledged their own expenses towards the arrangements. Instead, representatives from trade and industry were included. In the absence of civil society representation, it was one of the presidents of the Chambers of Commerce and Industry who attended the “green room” meeting (typical of the exclusive meeting structure of the WTO Ministerial) on the Agreement on Agriculture. The services of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute and Action Aid, groups that had been working intensively on the Agreement on Agriculture at the national and the international levels, were never sought. At least for Pakistani critics of the global organization, the conduct of the Pakistani government was not very different from that of the WTO Secretariat in excluding NGOs and civil society organizations from the process.

In Cancun, Pakistan, which was a member of G-21 as well as the Strategic Product Group (comprising 23 developing countries that were demanding special measures in support of their food security and rural livelihood), actually showed a willingness to start negotiations on the Singapore issues, provided they were linked to progress in agriculture. This was one of the main reasons Pakistan could not take a leading role among the G-21 partners. In fact, Pakistan’s stance in Cancun on various issues was kept as a secret, without a single public briefing by the official delegation during the whole conference. This time around, unlike in Doha, the negotiations on agriculture were not left to the Ministry of Commerce. In fact, for the first time a senior representative of the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock (MINFAL) was part of the official delegation. He, however, did not seem to have the time to consult representatives from outside the government, trade and industry circles present in Cancun.

The Sustainable Agriculture Action Group (SAAG), a network of civil society organizations working on agriculture and related issues, the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), and Action Aid Pakistan were present in Cancun. Four representatives from these Pakistani NGOs, including this writer, were denied the opportunity to meet the Pakistani Minister of Commerce. Even an early morning meeting was denied.

At least in Doha, the then Trade Minister was able to hold a press conference on the Development Box, along with various other trade ministers from developing countries. There, Islamabad emerged as the champion of the food security rights of the developing world. At Cancun, Pakistan squandered an opportunity of enhancing its image at the international level. The performance of the official delegation disappointed many who had looked forward to a progressive stance.

There is an increased awareness about WTO among major stakeholders in Pakistan including government officials, trade representatives, media, as well as NGOs. Sadly, as the future rounds of negotiations with a belligerent OECD promise to be tough and demanding, the Pakistani government does not give the impression of preparing seriously to participate in what may well be a historic encounter between the ‘developed’ and the ‘underdeveloped’. The Cancun needs to be given a serious thought for development of future strategy to take positions on issues of concerns to Pakistan in further rounds of talks at different level at the WTO.