WTO MOCK SUMMIT 2011SPEECH OF THE DIRECTOR AT THE TRAINING OF THE PARTICIPANTS

DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

BAYERO UNIVERSITY, KANO

 

Introduction:

I can see you – young volunteers of WTO-Mock Summit 2011 – your faces bright with zeal and happiness to get through the first round of training on the Mock Summit 2011.

Although I have known some of you as participants in 2009 and 2010, but when I look round I can see many new faces.

This gives me greater pleasure because it shows that there are always generations to carry on with the project.

So I welcome all of you both old and new, and wish you creative partnership like Japanese scientists, to create something which will be of talk every where in B.U.K, Kano and Nigeria at large.

Some of you know that what you are going to produce – both your speeches and the video film would be processed online to be tuned internationally.

However, it is also important to know that what you would produce is not only for talk and to be monitored internationally, but it has got a value. Yes! Not an exchange value. But many use values.

Last year when I opened the training of WTO-Mock Summit 2010 I listed the successes and the benefits we derive from this programme. I think there is no need to list them again.

Nevertheless, something worth to mention. At the opening of the training of the Mock Summit 2010, I said "wherever WTO-Mock Summit activists found themselves, they become distinct in team work; hard-work to attain the goal of their organization; efficient and effective; etc. Ahaa! Sadiq Tamimuddari found himself distinct in Bayelsa State, in Youth Service Corp. he was given an honour, widely televised and I hereby on behalf of all of you congratulate him.

Okay. It is better we go to the real issues.

 

Background

Those of you who are beginners in studies on trade, can cast your minds on trade in your local market. The bargaining between buyers and sellers, is it not conflict relationship? So, how do you think would be in international trade? It too is conflictual. A dangerous conflict interaction because it is between two independent nations.

In reality trade between nations had resulted in major wars, including First World War and Second World War.

Therefore, International Trade has to be regulated, otherwise the world would be in perpetual wars between nations. The first attempt to regulate international trade was after the First World War when International Trade Organisation was formed to remove barriers in trade between nations and to make trade brings development to weaker nations. The Congress of USA refused to ratify the charter which governed the principles of ITO, so it was left to die, a slow death. It was replaced by General Agreement on Tariff and Trade – at any rate the same ITO but with addition of provisions on principle of "Preferential Treatment" and exceptions, especially on agriculture, for USA and Europe, the major players in global trade.

 

However, from Tokyo Round of Trade Negotiations it became clear that GATT too could not manage global trade effectively and so needed renewal. Consultation started since 1986 and was not completed until December, 1994 – as Uruguay Round, which delivered World Trade Organisation.

The World Trade Organisation too is GATT with some additions. These are:

1. Developing countries to liberalise their agricultural sectors and industrial services.
   
2. Curtailed developing countries space to provide subsidies for local industries and agriculture;
   
3. Liberalisation of wide range of services;
   
4. Intellectual Property Right becomes part of trade.
   

So from January 1995, WTO replaced GATT and became a global trade monitor. Its structure of governance include – Minesterial Conference; General Council; Panels, Committees and Commissions on major trade issues and concerns. There is a Director General as Head of the Organisation. Its work is governed by Agreements which regulate trade between nations.

 

GATS

GATS i.e. General Agreement on Trade in Services is one of about 30 different Trade Agreements which govern the global administration of trade under WTO multilateral trade regime.

The history of International Trade in Services before the Uruguay Round and under the Uruguay Round will soon come in the Round Table discussion which we are going to commence – so there is no need to talk about it now.

Meanwhile, the growth of service sector in USA, Japan and European Union had come to a peak that there must be international regulation on trade in services.

Thirdly, the logic of capitalism in the Twenty-First Century is to capture and control the lives and means of living of the people across the globe. This can best be facilitated through trade in services, because these are the means of living by the people.

The GATS is indeed, the lifewire of neo-liberal globalisation and the mover of WTO-regime, yet it is obscured, by both students and researchers.

However, that is not our making. It is a calculated design by corporate interest to cover their agenda and confuse scientific analysis about trade in services, trade with our lives.

This is the reason why in the document of Agreement on trade in services there is no very clear definition of services. So this could give them a space to put anything they want to be services so let it be and anything they don't want to be services, let it not be services.

There are many problems in the working of GATS:

1. Developing countries are not ready for commercialisation of public services but got themselves just to do that;
   
2. The National Treatment clause is not fair to any member country of WTO with a relatively weak economic base.
   
3. Liberalisation of financial services is inconsistent with efforts for development.
   
4. What about migration of skilled persons?
   

 

These and many other problems caused GATS to be infested by Doha Demands. The Doha Agenda would be fully addressed during the working Groups Discussion. Any way the DDA is still the cause of the crisis of the WTO. One expression of the crisis is that since 2007 there has not been any Minestarial conference of the great organisation. Only Mini-Minesterial conferences and consultative meetings.

But still the deadlock continues. That is why the Mock Summit 2010 was a Mini-Minesterial conference held in Mock Geneva. The subject then was how is the global financial crisis of the time affects DDA negotiations.

In 2010 we imagined three scenarios:

1. That the Mock Summit would end with an understanding between the parties to break the deadlock and push forward for a final resolution of the crisis.
   
2. That consultation will breakdown as delegates would not find a meeting point of resolving the crisis.
   
3. That delegates would make progress but consultations are to continue.
   

The last option emerged, so in 2011 consultation continues; on a new subject i.e. GATS. I want you to be mindful that in the real WTO the negotiations on GATS is not completed. Don't move into quarrelling to repeal the Agreement now. That will terminate our analysis of the situation very easily. But situate yourselves to negotiate to get some benefits. That will make it more interesting.

Okay now let us divide into Working Groups discussion.

M.M. Yusif

Director WTO Mock Summit

26-06-2011