24 Apr Is Doha Dying a Slow Death?
The push to finalize the Doha Round of Negotiations for the World Trade Organization has hit another roadblock. Following on earlier reports that negotiators would miss an end-of-April deadline to produce texts setting forth an agreed framework for agricultural and industrial tariff reductions, this week witnessed the cancellation of Ministerial-level meetings. In its place, U.S. and E.U. negotiators have opted to play the blame-game as to who’s at fault for missing the deadline.
For its part, the WTO has adopted the age-old solution of negotiating hosts – give the negotiators more time to negotiate. According to the WTO’s Director General Pascal Lamy, instead of scheduling more negotiations, the WTO will host “continuous” negotiations from now until mid-June. This will give negotiators time not only to try and reach agreement on the agricultural and industrial tariff texts, but also to allow them to avoid another missed deadline in July, when agreed framework texts on additional topics (e.g., liberalization of trade in services) are due. Indeed, July may prove the decisive point for whether Doha reaches a successful conclusion. Why? See below the fold to find out.
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