Korea

The WTO Panel Report, UNITED STATES – SAFEGUARD MEASURE ON IMPORTS OF LARGE RESIDENTIAL WASHERS, WT/DS546/R (8 February 2022)

· February 9, 2022 · Uncategorized · , , , , · No Comments

On February 8th, a WTO panel report was released to the public on a U.S. safeguard case on imports of large residential washers. A challenge to the U.S. action was filed at the WTO by Korea on May 18, 2018 after safeguard relief was provided by the U.S. beginning February 7, 2018. The panel process was complicated by COVID restrictions on in person meetings. The challenge was to the U.S. International Trade Commission’s affirmative serious injury determination and remedy recommendation from December 2017 and the President’s issuance of import relief in late January 2018. See USITC, Large Residential Washers, Inv. No. TA 201 076, USITC Pub. 4745 (December 2017); Presidential Documents, Proclamation 9694 of January 23, 2018 – To Facilitate Positive Adjustment to Competition from Imports of Large Residential Washers, 83 FR 3553 (25 January 2018). As noted in footnote 11 to the Panel Report, “We note that in its comments to the Descriptive Part of the Panel Report, Korea noted that the safeguard measure at issue was extended on 14 January 2021 for two additional years, through 7 February 2023. (Korea’s comments to the Descriptive Part of the Panel Report (referring to US notification to the WTO, G/SG/N/10/USA/8/Suppl.7)).” WT/DS546/R at 10 fn. 11.

The panel found a number of aspects of the USITC determination and Presidential action to be contrary to U.S. obligations. The violations by and large raise important questions about needed reforms to GATT 1994 Art. XIX and the Agreement on Safeguards to ensure a functioning safeguard remedy as well as the proper role of dispute settlement in such cases. At the same time, a large number of challenges by Korea were rejected by the panel through the correct application of burden of proof and standard of review of administrative findings. Thus, the U.S. will have to decide if it will appeal the panel report, agree to its adoption or seek some other form of resolution with Korea.

GATT Art. XIX:1(a)

The first “violation” of obligations found by the panel reflects prior Appellate Body findings that provisions of Article XIX permit safeguard actions only where there are unforeseen developments and the problems are from the effects of obligations incurred by Members. The panel, following earlier decisions, found that these factors had to be explained and justified in the USITC determination and not raised after the fact during the dispute. WT/DS546/R at part 7.2, page 13-19. The concluding paragraph states, “7.35. In light of the above, we find that the USITC acted inconsistently with Article XIX:1(a) of the GATT 1994 and Article 3.1 of the Agreement on Safeguards because its report does not contain a reasoned and adequate explanation on ‘unforeseen developments’ and the ‘obligations incurred’ by the United States, within the meaning of Article XIX:1(a) of the GATT 1994.”

In the USTR report on the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization from February 2020, USTR flagged six particularly eggregious decision areas of the Appellate Body that reflected the range of problems of concern to the United States. The fifth area was “The Appellate Body’s Non-Text-Based Interpretation of Article XIX of the GATT 1994 and the Safeguards Agreement Undermines the Ability of WTO Members to Use Safeguards Measures”. Report at 110-114, https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/Report_on_the_Appellate_Body_of_the_World_Trade_Organization.pdf. The segment from the USTR Report is copied below.

“E. The Appellate Body’s Non-Text-Based Interpretation of Article XIX of the GATT 1994 and the Safeguards Agreement Undermines the Ability of WTO Members to Use Safeguards Measures

“• WTO Members specifically reserved for themselves the right to impose safeguard measures to protect their industries from import surges that cause or threaten to cause serious injury.

“• The Appellate Body has diminished this right by inventing additional requirements for the imposition of safeguards that Members never agreed to.

“• For example, the Appellate Body has found that prior to taking a safeguard action, a Member’s competent authority must include in its report a demonstration of the existence of ‘unforeseen developments,’ despite the absence of any such requirement in the GATT 1994 or the Safeguards Agreement.

“• The Appellate Body has also departed from the WTO agreements in creating a high threshold for serious injury determinations under the Safeguards Agreement.

“• Through the imposition of new obligations, the Appellate Body has rendered legitimate
safeguard measures significantly more difficult to defend.

“Safeguard measures provide a crucial means for WTO Members to protect their industries from import surges (including surges that would destroy domestic industry). WTO Members specifically reserved for themselves the right to impose such measures and established rules for the application of such measures in the WTO Agreement on Safeguards (‘Safeguards Agreement’).

“1.The GATT and the Safeguards Agreement Reflect the Agreed Rules for Safeguard Measures

“Article XIX:1(a) of the GATT 1947 provides as follows:

“If, as a result of unforeseen developments and of the effect of the obligations incurred by a contracting party under this Agreement, including tariff concessions, any product is being imported into the territory of that contracting party in such increased quantities and under such conditions as to cause or threaten serious injury to domestic producers in that territory of like or directly competitive products, the contracting party shall be free, in respect of such product, and to the extent and for such time as may be necessary to prevent or remedy such injury, to suspend the obligation in whole or in part or to withdraw or modify the concession.

“As with most obligations in GATT 1947, panels evaluated compliance with Article XIX by examining, after the fact, whether the conditions justified a contracting party’s decision to suspend an obligation or withdraw or modify a concession. Parties to the proceeding could rely on information and findings from their domestic proceedings, or introduce new evidence and make new arguments to defend their actions.

“The WTO Agreement incorporated Article XIX of the GATT 1947 substantively unchanged into the GATT 1994, but added the Safeguards Agreement to ‘establish[] rules for the application of safeguard measures which shall be understood to mean those measures provided for in Article XIX of GATT 1994.”260 The Safeguards Agreement set out standards for determining when serious injury existed. The Safeguards Agreement also set forth a requirement that a Member apply a safeguard measure only after an investigation by the competent authorities of that Member ‘to determine whether increased imports have caused or are threatening to cause serious injury to a domestic industry under terms of the Agreement.’261 Article 3.1 provides that ‘[t]he competent authorities shall publish a report setting forth their findings and reasoned conclusions reached on all pertinent issues of fact and law.’ The Safeguards Agreement does not mention ‘unforeseen developments’ or require the competent authorities to evaluate whether serious injury is ‘as a result of unforeseen developments’ for purposes of Article XIX of the GATT 1994.

“2. The Appellate Body Has Created Additional Obligations for Imposing Safeguard Measures

“In 2001, in US – Lamb Meat, the Appellate Body proclaimed (1) that the WTO Member taking safeguard action must publicly demonstrate unforeseen developments as a matter of fact before applying a safeguard measure and (2) that the demonstration must have appeared in the report of the competent authorities.262 Neither of these determinations is based on the text of Article XIX. Indeed, the Appellate Body admitted that ‘Article XIX provides no express guidance’ on the issue of ‘when, where or how this demonstration should occur.’263 Undaunted, the Appellate Body based its new determination on ‘instructive guidance’ that it drew from its own findings in earlier safeguard disputes. The Appellate Body’s approach was erroneous. The Appellate Body took a statement from one of its earlier reports, that unforeseen developments are circumstances that ‘must be demonstrated as a matter of fact,’ and used this phrase in a different context to create an entirely new and additional obligation that is not in Article XIX or the Safeguards Agreement.

“The lack of ‘guidance’ on this issue in Article XIX and the absence of any reference to “unforeseen developments” in the Safeguards Agreement demonstrates that WTO Members have not consented to be bound by any particular approach. The United States and other Members have given the Appellate Body no authority to to use its own prior reports to create obligations that do not appear in the text that Members agreed to.

“First, Article XIX does not require a ‘demonstration.’ As with other trade remedies covered by the GATT 1994, Article XIX merely specifies the conditions that justify an action. Thus, a need to ‘demonstrate’ that the conditions exist could arise only if and when another WTO Member challenges the action’s consistency with the relevant condition in Article XIX. By requiring a ‘demonstration’ before application of a safeguard measure, the Appellate Body’s approach appears to reverse the normal burden of proof in dispute settlement proceedings – that the complaining WTO Member bears the burden to show that serious injury was not ‘a result of unforeseen developments.’ The Appellate Body ignored this, and instead required that the WTO Member maintaining a safeguard measure bear the burden of demonstrating the existence of unforeseen developments before another WTO Member even challenged the safeguard measure.

“Second, the Appellate Body states that the ‘demonstration’ must be made by a WTO Member’s competent authorities, and in their published report, and not by any other official of the WTO Member or in any other manner. But Article XIX makes reference neither to competent authorities nor to published reports, two concepts that originate in the Safeguards Agreement, not in Article XIX. And, the Safeguards Agreement charges the competent authorities with the investigation of serious injury – not the other elements of Article XIX. For example, in Korea – Definitive Safeguard Measure on Imports of Certain Dairy Products, the Appellate Body correctly found that there is no obligation for the competent authorities to make findings justifying the type and extent of a safeguard measure. There is simply no textual basis for the Appellate Body’s conclusion in US – Lamb Meat that Article XIX requires the competent authorities to make any finding on unforeseen developments in their report.

“The Appellate Body supports its interpretation by claiming that any other approach would leave the means for complying with Article XIX ‘vague and uncertain’. This is simply not true. WTO Members take most measures without providing an advance demonstration of consistency with the WTO. A WTO Member challenging a safeguard measure must prove that a measure fails to meet one of the relevant requirements, and the Member applying that measure needs to demonstrate consistency only to the extent that the complaining WTO Member has proven its case. The same approach should apply to those elements of Article XIX, like unforeseen developments, that the Safeguards Agreement requires to be subject to the investigation and determination of the competent authorities. In any event, it is outside the mandate of the Appellate Body to elaborate on the text to satisfy the Appellate Body’s own sense of what is ‘clear’ or ‘certain.’ That is a task that WTO members reserved for themselves. Article 3.2 of the DSU is quite clear on this point.

“Other Members also have criticized the Appellate Body’s reasoning as well. As Korea explained in statements to the General Council, the Appellate Body’s reasoning left Members with ‘an ambiguous requirement to demonstrate the existence of ‘unforeseen developments’ [that was] not in line with the drafters’ intention.’ Korea also noted that the drafting history of the Safeguards Agreement demonstrated that ‘it would be unreasonable to conclude that the negotiators had left an essential requirement in Article XIX of GATT 1994 and had not included it in the new Agreement, which was meant to be the final embodiment of the rules on safeguards.’264

“The Appellate Body also strayed from the text of Article XIX and the Safeguards Agreement in US – Wheat Gluten in 2000, and US – Line Pipe in 2002. In these proceedings, the Appellate Body imposed a heightened threshold on the serious injury determinations by the competent authorities.

“Article 4.2(a) of the Safeguards Agreement provides for the competent authorities to conduct ‘an investigation to determine whether increased imports have caused or are threatening to cause serious injury to a domestic industry under the terms of this Agreement.’ It instructs them to ‘evaluate all relevant factors of an objective and quantifiable nature having a bearing on the situation of that industry,’ and lists several of these. Article 4.2(b) of the Safeguards Agreement then provides:

‘The determination referred to in subparagraph (a) shall not be made unless this investigation demonstrates, on the basis of objective evidence, the existence of the causal link between increased imports of the product concerned and serious injury or threat thereof. When factors other than increased imports are causing injury to the domestic industry at the same time, such injury shall not be attributed to
increased imports.

“Relying on a negative obligation not to attribute injury from other causes to imports, the Appellate Body fashioned an affirmative requirement to analyze not only the nature of other factors, but to identify their ‘extent’ and then ‘separate and distinguish’ the effects of other factors from the effects of increased imports. The Appellate Body could even be understood to have suggested that the extent of injury from other factors should be mathematically ascertained so as to precisely separate and distinguish the injury.265 None of these additional requirements appear in the treaty text. The Appellate Body’s erroneous approach could also be understood to prevent an investigating authority from evaluating the injury caused by other factors and then examining whether that injury attenuates the causal link between the increased imports and serious injury. This would diminish the rights of WTO Members to take safeguard action in the circumstances set out in GATT 1994 Article XIX and the Safeguards Agreement.

“3. The Appellate Body Has Made It All But Impossible for WTO Members to Impose Safeguard Measures

“A number of safeguard measures have been challenged at the WTO and, with one exception, all have been found to be WTO-inconsistent. 266 This is not surprising given the Appellate Body’s erroneous interpretations. The additional requirements invented by the Appellate Body raise the threshold for an affirmative finding that increased imports cause serious injury to a height that makes it all but impossible to impose safeguards. Under the Appellate Body’s erroneous approach, even if the imports are the most important cause of serious injury, a WTO Member may not apply a safeguard measure if its authorities did not mathematically determine and isolate the effects of other factors. These invented requirements seriously detract from WTO Members’ ability to protect themselves from unforeseen surges in imports, a right clearly reserved to them in Article XIX and the Safeguards Agreement.

“260 Agreement on Safeguards, Article 1.

“261 Agreement on Safeguards, Articles 3.1 and 4.2(a).

“262 US – Lamb (AB), para. 72 (2001).

“263 Id.

“264 Dispute Settlement Body, Minutes of the Meeting Held on January 12, 2000), WT/DSB/M/73 (4 February 2000); accord T. Raychaudhuri, The Unforeseen Developments Clause in Safeguards under the WTO: Confusions in Compliance, 11 Estey Ctr. J. Int’l Law and Trade Pol’y 302, 314 (‘The addition of such a requirement does not appear to be at all consistent with the intent of the negotiators in the Uruguay Round. In fact, a perusal of the negotiating history reveals that the draft version of the AS did contain the unforeseen developments clause. By mid1990, however, the clause was omitted from the draft, while other conditions of Article XIX were repeated almost verbatim.’).

“265 See US – Lamb (AB) (2001), para. 130 (‘[t]he words ‘factors of an objective and quantifiable nature’ imply, therefore, an evaluation of objective data which enables the measurement and quantification of these factors.’).”

While it is perhaps not surprising that the panel would follow the prior Appellate Body decisions on the issue of GATT 1994 Article XIX:1(as), the problem flagged by the U.S. and others remains present in the current decision. Moreover, the lack of inclusion of the requirement in the Agreement on Safeguards may simply reflect the reality experienced by the United States between 1962 and 1974 that the Art. XIX language was not administrable, and hence represent the desire of Members to have the Agreement on Safeguards be operational in fact.

Look for the U.S. to need a resolution of this issue (among others) before the Dispute Settlement problems are resolved. Resolution could occur through a revision to GATT 1994 Art. XIX or the Safeguard Agreement and/or meaningful reform of the dispute settlement system including panel reports.

Likeness of domestically produced parts and imported parts of LRWs

The domestic industry was defined by the USITC as consisting of washing machines and certain parts. Korea made various challenges to the domestic like product including challenging whether domestic parts were like imported parts since such parts were designed for particular models and hence not interchangeable. The panel viewed the Commission’s determination as violative of U.S. obligations under Art. 4.1(c) of the Safeguards Agreement since the Commission indicated the products didn’t compete and the Commission didn’t provide an adequate explanation for why the products were nonetheless “like”. See Panel Report at 23-27. Paras. 7.66 and 7.67 provided the summary of the panel’s finding.

“7.66. In the underlying investigation, the USITC specifically found that imported and domestically produced parts did not compete. We note that the United States alludes to different ways in which conditions of competition could manifest in the market, including situations where imports of LRW parts that do not directly compete with either domestic parts or finished products may nevertheless have an indirect impact on domestic producers of parts and finished products if they are assembled into finished products in domestic screwdriver operations that do not change the fundamental character of the parts. However, the USITC did not undertake any such analysis alluded by the United States as part of its likeness analysis.112

“7.67. Based on the foregoing, we find that the USITC did not find imported covered parts to be like domestically produced covered parts in a manner consistent with Article 4.1(c) of the Agreement on Safeguards in defining the domestic industry. Having reached this finding, we do not consider it necessary to make additional findings under Article 2.1 of the Agreement on Safeguards.

“112 See e.g. United States’ response to Panel question No. 67(a), paras. 1-2. The United States clarified that the USITC did not undertake an analysis of any indirect competition between domestically produced and imported parts as part of its likeness analysis because LG and Samsung, the two Korean producers, had not yet commenced production of LRWs at their planned US LRW production facilities as of the date of the USITC’s vote on injury. The United States explains that the USITC reasonably considered the likelihood of indirect competition from imports of covered parts in recommending safeguard remedy be imposed on parts. We also note that the United States suggests that the USITC found that domestic and imported covered parts competed as they “offer[ed] alternative ways of satisfying the same consumer demand in the marketplace”. (United States’ comments on Korea’s response to question No. 67, fn 12 (referring to USITC report, (Exhibit KOR-1), p. 17)). However, we recall that the USITC stated that covered parts did not compete. Moreover, at the cited section of the USITC report, the USITC stated that “[d]omestically produced and imported covered parts share the same general functionality when installed in LRWs” (emphasis added). This statement does not imply that covered parts competed in the market. As the USITC noted, covered parts may only be installed in specific LRW models. (USITC report, (Exhibit KOR-1), p. 16).”

While the finding can be viewed as a narrow one and one perhaps readily addressable by the USITC in future investigations, the finding of violation is questionable at best. Imported parts were used for repairs and potentially for downstream assembly. Domestically produced parts were used both in original equipment and for sale as repairs. The fact that the parts weren’t interchangeable for a given model doesn’t mean there wasn’t competition. The panel report mentions elsewhere serious price depression found by the Commission for LRWs. The same was likely the case for parts in the aftermarket. It is not uncommon for merchants to promote the total cost of equipment including costs of repairs if needed. Lower replacement costs for an imported part would likely put pressure on domestic replacement part prices. The USITC questionnaires that went to producers and importers may have captured some information on shipments/sales of parts. In any event, for panelists to construe the ITC description of a lack of competition in terms of use within a given model as undermining the appropriateness of parts being found to be like products ignores commercial reality. See also Panel Report at 26 fn. 110 (“We note that in its third-party statement, the European Union argued that because LRW parts are used to repair the respective LRW units, the market for LRW parts may constitute an ‘aftermarket’, while the market for LRW units would be the ‘primary market’. The European Union considered that it is possible that the interaction between the primary market (LRW units) and the aftermarket (LRW parts) form one ‘system market’, so that competition would take place between LRW systems. In its view, if one single domestic market exists for LRW units and parts, within that market, imported and domestic LRW parts would be ‘directly competitive’ with each other because competition would follow from the competition at the system level. (European Union’s third-party submission, paras. 34-40). We note that the USITC did not take such “system market” approach in the underlying investigation. Therefore, whether such approach would be consistent with Article 4.1(c) is not an issue in the matter before us.”).

As part of its attack on the U.S. like product findings, Korea separately argued that the USITC had included parts pursuant to its product line approach to analysis. The panel agreed with Korea (Panel Report at 27-30), but that issue would be irrelevant if a proper analysis had been performed on the like product issue on parts.

Other issues

The panel faulted the USITC for not explaining why it had excluded one domestic producer from profit and loss data and why the remaining data were sufficient. It also faulted the U.S. for not giving Korea sufficient time to consult on the safeguard remedy once the Administration had decided to include product from Korea in the relief. Regardless of the merits of the panel’s findings on these issues, neither should pose significant challenges to the U.S. in future cases.

Conclusion

Because the panel report contains several significant errors, including at least one of longstanding concern to the United States as reflected in the USTR Report on the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization, it is possible that the United States will choose to file an appeal at the WTO and hence join the 24 other disputes where appeals have been filed where resolution is helpdup by the lack of a functioning Appellate Body (including a case where Korea has appealed (22 January 2021:  Notification of Appeal by Korea in DS553: Korea — Sunset Review of Anti-Dumping Duties on Stainless Steel Bars (WT/DS553/6)).

However, relief under the U.S. safeguard action is due to expire on February 7, 2023. Moreover, on many issues raised by Korea, the panel found no violation of obligation by the United States. In such circumstances, it is possible that the U.S. will agree to resolve the dispute by terminating the 201 relief sometime in the Spring.

My bet would be on the resolution option.

The Indo-Pacific region — increased interest in the CPTPP by major trading nations; implications for international trade; U.S. policy towards China

· October 4, 2021 · CPTPP applications for membership, U.S. trade policy towards China, Uncategorized · , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , · No Comments

The Trans-Pacific Partnership was originally pursued by the United States to improve trade relations with many countries in the Pacific region and as a counter to rising Chinese influence. See, e.g., New York Times, U.S. Allies See Trans-Pacific Partnership as a Check on China, October 5, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/07/world/asia/trans-pacific-partnership-china-australia.html.

After President Trump withdrew the United States from the Agreement at the beginning of his term in 2017, Japan pushed to conclude the agreement among the remaining eleven countries. The revised agreement, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific
Partnership, was signed in Santiago, Chile on 8 March 2018 and took effect 30 December 2018, with 8 of the eleven countries who signed now having ratified — Mexico, Japan, Singapore, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, Vietnam and Peru. That leaves Brunei, Chile and Malaysia as signatories who have yet to ratify the agreement.

With Brexit completed, the United Kingdom was the first non-CPTPP country to apply for membership. Its application filed on 1 February 2021 was accepted on 2 June 2021 with the first negotiations held on 28 September 2021. See Government of Canada, Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) – Joint Ministerial Statement on the occasion of the Fourth Commission Meeting, 2 June 2021, https://www.international.gc.ca/trade-commerce/trade-agreements-accords-commerciaux/agr-acc/cptpp-ptpgp/cptpp_meeting_four-ptpgp_declaration_quatre.aspx?lang=eng; Government of the United Kingdom, UK kickstarts talks to join £9 trillion global trade bloc, 28 September 2021, https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-kickstarts-talks-to-join-9-trillion-global-trade-bloc. The U.K.’s application is also an extension of the range of countries potentially eligible for membership since the U.K. is not a Pacific bordering country.

In September, both China and Taiwan applied for membership. See, e.g., Ministry of Commerce, People’s Republic of China, China officially applies to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), September 18, 2021, http://english.mofcom.gov.cn/article/newsrelease/significantnews/202109/20210903201113.shtml; Nikkei Asia, Taiwan submits bid to join CPTPP trade pact, September 23, 2021, https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Trade/Taiwan-submits-bid-to-join-CPTPP-trade-pact; Wall Street Journal, China Seeks to Join Pacific Trade Pact After U.S. Forms New Security Alliance, September 16, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-seeks-to-join-pacific-trade-pact-after-u-s-forms-new-security-alliance-11631813201 .

China’s application, while facing hurdles because of challenges to complying with provisions on state owned enterprises, data flows and other issues, is also a major challenge to efforts of the U.S. to have a more important role in the Indo-Pacific region. Because China would more than double the size of the CPTPP if admitted and because of heightened tensions in the Indo-Pacific area in recent years, there has been a great deal written on China’s application.

Some articles have argued for CPTPP countries rejecting China’s application or the likely failure of China to join for substantive reasons. See CNBC, China will likely fail in its CPTPP bid — but it’s a ‘smart’ move against the U.S., say analysts, September 27, 2021, https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/27/analysts-on-chinas-bid-to-join-cptpp-strategic-competition-with-us.html (“Beijing needs the approval from all 11 CPTPP signatories to join CPTPP, and it may not succeed given its strained relationships with some member countries, said analysts.”); Bloomberg, Editorial Board, CPTPP Trade Block Shouldn’t Welcome China, September 22, 2021, https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-09-22/cptpp-trade-bloc-shouldn-t-welcome-china.

Others have noted the multiyear effort by China to study the TPP and resulting CPTPP and ongoing efforts to gain support from individual CPTPP members for their application. See Nikkei Asia, Analysis: China’s TPP bid follows carefully scripted 300-day plan, Beijing’s move aims to thwart possible U.S. return to pact, pressure Taiwan, September 23, 2021, https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/China-up-close/Analysis-China-s-TPP-bid-follows-carefully-scripted-300-day-plan; Brookings, China moves to join the CPTPP, but don’t expect a fast pass, September 23, 2021, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/09/23/china-moves-to-join-the-cptpp-but-dont-expect-a-fast-pass/; Foreign Policy, Wendy Cutler, China Wants to Join the Trade Pact Once Designed to Counter It, September 21, 2021, https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/21/china-cptpp-trade-agreement/.

Others have focused on the importance of the U.S. reengaging economically in the region or risking losing to China. For example, Wendy Cutler, a former USTR lead negotiator for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, is the Executive Vice President of the Asia Society Policy Institute and has urged the last and current Administrations to stay economically engaged in Asia. See ASPI, Report, Reengaging the Asia-Pacific on Trade: A TPP Roadmap for the Next U.S. Administration, September 2020, https://asiasociety.org/sites/default/files/2020-09/A%20TPP%20Roadmap%20for%20the%20Next%20U.S.%20Administration.pdf. See also Nikkei Asia, Comment, Why U.S. membership in CPTPP makes more sense than ever, Washington risks being locked out and ceding Indo-Pacific influence to China, September 24, 2021, https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Comment/Why-U.S.-membership-in-CPTPP-makes-more-sense-than-ever; PIIE, Jeffrey Schott, China’s CPTPP bid puts Biden on the spot, September 23, 2021, https://www.piie.com/blogs/trade-and-investment-policy-watch/chinas-cptpp-bid-puts-biden-spot; Inside U.S. Trade’s World Trade Online, Citing China’s CPTPP bid, Carper and Cornyn urge U.S.
trade leadership, September 20, 2021, https://insidetrade.com/daily-news/citing-china%E2%80%99s-cptpp-bid-carper-and-cornyn-urge-us-trade-leadership; Wall Street Journal, Opinion/Comment by Tim Groser, The U.S. Has a Way Back on Pacific Trade, And if Washington doesn’t take it, the Indo-Pacific would likely become China’s for the taking, September 29, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/america-tpp-china-japan-indo-pacific-trade-influence-11632931688. New Zealand’s Former Trade and Environment Minister Tim Groser’s piece is particularly interesting and is copied below.

“It was February 2017 and President Trump’s first address to a joint session of Congress. I was on the floor of the U.S. House as a guest of a pro-trade Republican congressman. As the president announced the U.S. withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, I was thinking about a conversation I’d had with a particularly astute Asian ambassador. He’d suggested to me that if a book on the decline of American influence in Asia and the Indo-Pacific were ever written—and he hoped it never would be—its first chapter would be an account of the withdrawal of the U.S. from TPP.

“Largely because of Japan’s courageous decision to proceed without the U.S., TPP survived. With some changes to a few of its provisions and a new moniker—Comprehensive and Progressive TPP, or CPTPP—it went ahead. Nothing would have been possible if Japan, by far the dominant remaining economy in the agreement, had decided differently.

“China’s decision this month to apply for CPTPP membership should be a sharp reminder to Republicans and Democrats alike that if the U.S. is serious about competing with China in the Indo-Pacific it must confront a central reality: Having withdrawn from the TPP, the U.S. doesn’t yet have a trade strategy to back up its military posture in the region. China is the principal trading partner of many countries in the Indo-Pacific. The size of China’s economy, as well as its military and geostrategic ambition, means that Beijing will be at the center of the debate over every regional and global issue in the 21st century, from climate change to trade. Its ability to influence the outcomes of those issues will be determined by the degree—and effectiveness—of U.S.

“We don’t yet know where the new policy script that the Chinese Communist Party is now writing will lead the world’s second-largest economy. When Deng Xiaoping 40 years ago shifted China toward growth and an open economy with his slogan ‘to be rich is glorious,’ it was the beginning of the largest poverty-reduction program in human history. Hundreds of millions of Chinese were lifted out of destitution, and huge opportunities opened up for China’s trading partners. Things have been moving backward lately, in the direction of greater centralization and state control. One could even mount an elegant argument that China itself needs balance from the full engagement of the U.S. in the region.

“The Chinese people have benefited enormously, not from ‘wolf warrior’ diplomacy, but from Beijing’s positive engagement with the U.S.-designed liberal economic architecture. China’s future choices and trade strategies will be fundamentally different if they aren’t constrained by a muscular and successful U.S. economic strategy in the Indo-Pacific.

“Intriguingly, the U.S. is putting in place the elements of regional re-engagement. No foreign policy (or trade policy) is politically sustainable without a solid domestic constituency behind it. Trade has long been a tortured issue in American politics, particularly for Democrats, because economic change creates anxiety for the middle class. When people are under severe economic pressure, trade is always a potential scapegoat.

“In September 2020, the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace published a white paper titled ‘Making U.S. Foreign Policy Work Better for the Middle Class.’ Among the authors was Jake Sullivan, now President Biden’s national security adviser. The White House approach to assuaging traditional Democratic fears of trade-induced economic change seems clear: Shore up domestic policy before moving forward aggressively on any trade deals.

“The recent establishment of the Aukus security arrangement among the U.S., the U.K. and Australia can leave no doubt that the Biden administration views the Indo-Pacific as the most important theater of strategic competition with China. Kurt Campbell, the National Security Council’s coordinator for the Indo-Pacific, has made clear that U.S. strategy in the region must extend beyond a military plan to protect American allies from China’s expansionist ambitions. It needs an economic component.

“In my view, the U.S. is unlikely to rectify the mistake of leaving TPP by asking to join CPTPP. Mr. Biden has said he would oppose joining the original deal without a renegotiation. That alone would make it difficult for the U.S. to waltz back in. But it’s also true that the strategic environment has evolved. Large parts of TPP, such as its provisions on trade and the environment, remain relevant, but the past five years have sharpened the policy world’s understanding of such key issues as digital trade and state-owned enterprises. Plus, there is a new kid on the TPP block: the U.K. The world’s sixth-largest economy, a major intelligence and defense partner of the U.S., wants to join the club. The U.K.’s post-Brexit desire to expand its horizons beyond geographical Europe was the political subtext of the trade deal announced this summer between London and Canberra.

“Whatever next year’s congressional elections bring, active foreign-policy engagement always requires the involvement of both American political parties. The U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement, updating the North American Free Trade Agreement, passed easily with bipartisan support during the Trump administration. If the U.S. recommits to TPP, it should be rechristened the Indo-Pacific Economic Partnership Agreement. A new name might make it an easier sell politically.

“The regional stakes were high even before China’s aggressive move on Hong Kong, its saber-rattling in Taiwan, and its ramped-up trade war with Australia. We now need to hear American leaders on both sides of the aisle talking about re-engaging in the region, not only on the political and military levels, but on the trade and economic architecture that will shape economic relations over the next decade and beyond. Only then will my friend the astute Asian ambassador be able to rest easy, secure in the knowledge that the decline of American influence in the Indo-Pacific is a book that will never be written.

“Mr. Groser served as New Zealand’s trade minister (2008–15) and ambassador to the U.S. (2016–18).“

The interest in the CPTPP will be heightened for other countries who are not members or who are already considering joining CPTPP and will be the subject of programs to explore the politics and business implications. See, e.g., Inside U.S. Trade’s World Trade Online, Eyes on Asia: Thailand re-evaluates CPTPP, Peru brings pact into force, September 22, 2021, https://insidetrade.com/trade/eyes-asia-thailand-re-evaluates-cptpp-peru-brings-pact-force; Business Korea, South Korea Planning to Join CPTPP, January 12, 2021, http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=58283; Nikkei Asia, Philippines explores joining TPP to expand free trade network, April 2, 2021, https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Trade/Philippines-explores-joining-TPP-to-expand-free-trade-network; The Global Business Dialogue, Inc., CPTPP: PEFORMANCE, PROMISE AND OUTLOOK, October 5 and 7, 2021, https://www.gbdinc.org/.

Likely U.S. Trade Approach Short Term

Despite the groups calling for the U.S. to reengage with the CPTPP countries and the obvious growing importance of the CPTPP for Indo-Pacific trade relations, most analysts believe the United States will not seek to either renegotiate the CPTPP or to join the CPTPP as it is in the near future. While the U.S. has free trade agreements with many of the CPTPP countries (Canada, Mexico, Australia, Singapore, Peru and Chile), with the exception of Canada and Mexico who are party to the USMCA, other FTAs are older and not as comprehensive or addressing all the issues as the CPTPP.

The United States under the Trump Administration and now under the Biden Administration has sought selective trade improvements with some Indo-Pacific countries, including Japan (Phase I deal under the Trump Administration), resolution of 301 disputes on currency and lumber with Vietnam (resolution by the Biden Administration) and bilateral activity with other Asian countries including India, Japan and Australia as members of the Quad. See, e.g., White House Briefing Room, U.S.-India Joint Leaders’ Statement: A Partnership for Global Good, September 24, 2021, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/09/24/u-s-india-joint-leaders-statement-a-partnership-for-global-good/; White House Briefing Room, Joint Statement from Quad Leaders, September 24, 2021, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/09/24/joint-statement-from-quad-leaders/; White House Briefing Room, Quad Principles on Technology Design, Development, Governance, and Use, September 24, 2021, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/09/24/quad-principles-on-technology-design-development-governance-and-use/. These types of initiatives include trade related elements such as supply chain resiliency in areas like semiconductors and pharmaceuticals and other medical products needed to address the COVID-19 pandemic as well as on technical barriers to trade issues flowing from technology developments. And, of course, the U.S. engages with other countries in the region even if there are no specific trade negotiations. See, e.g., USTR, Readout Of Ambassador Katherine Tai’s Meeting with ASEAN Economic Ministers, September 14, 2021, https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/press-releases/2021/september/readout-ambassador-katherine-tais-meeting-asean-economic-ministers.

But these efforts to date don’t ensure U.S. access to many of these markets on the best possible terms for some products and services or ensure the highest standards of the agreements going forward.

China may or may not be accepted into the CPTPP now that it has applied or may decide that the requirements won’t work for its vision of its economy. While the U.S. is seeking cooperation from trading partners at the WTO and in various alliances to deal with some of the major challenges posed by China’s failure to convert its economy to a market economy and to address some of the coercion and failures to comply with bilateral, plurilateral and multilateral commitments, a strong trade agenda and participating in the rule development within important regional groupings would obviously improve the likelihood of improved balance in international trade relations.

That said, the Biden Administration has been reviewing its trade relationship with China, looking to develop a whole of government approach to China.

USTR’s October 4, 2021 articulation of U.S. approach to trade with China

USTR had signaled last week that Amb. Tai would be making a major speech today. The speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies was at 10 a.m. (ET) this morning. See Office of the United States Trade Representative, Remarks As Prepared for Delivery of Ambassador Katherine Tai Outlining the Biden-Harris Administration’s “New Approach to the U.S.-China Trade Relationship,” October 4, 2021, https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/press-releases/2021/october/remarks-prepared-delivery-ambassador-katherine-tai-outlining-biden-harris-administrations-new. The Administration also released a fact sheet on the Administration’s policy. See Office of the United States Trade Representative, Fact Sheet: The Biden-Harris Administration’s New Approach to the U.S. – China Trade Relationship, October 4, 2021, https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/press-releases/2021/october/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administrations-new-approach-us-china-trade-relationship. The fact sheet lists four “initial steps” the U.S. is taking. Those steps as described in the fact sheet are reproduced below.

“Today, we are announcing the initial steps we will take to re-align our trade policies towards the PRC around OUR priorities: 

“•    First, we will discuss with China its performance under the Phase One Agreement. China made commitments that do benefit certain American industries, including agriculture that we must enforce.  President Biden will continue to promote our economic interests – and build confidence for American industry.

“•    Second, while pursuing Phase One enforcement, we will restart our domestic tariff exclusions process to mitigate the effects of certain Section 301 tariffs that have not generated any strategic benefits and raised costs on Americans. We will ensure current Section 301 tariffs align appropriately with our economic priorities like boosting American workers’ wages and job opportunities, securing the resilience of critical supply chains, sustaining our technological edge, and protecting our national security interests. 

“•    Third, we continue to have serious concerns with the PRC that were not addressed in the Phase One deal, specifically related to its state-centered and non-market trade practices including Beijing’s non-market policies and practices that distort competition by propping up state-owned enterprises, limiting market access, and other coercive and predatory practices in trade and technology. 

“Even as we work to enforce the terms of Phase One, we will raise our broader concerns with Beijing’s non-market policies and practices like abuse of state-owned enterprises, anti-competitive behavior and subsidies, the theft of American intellectual property directly and in coordination with our allies and partners. We will defend American economic interests using the full range of tools we have and by developing new tools as needed. 

“•    And lastly, we know that we cannot do it alone. We will continue consulting and coordinating with allies and partners who share our strong interest in ensuring that the terms of competition are fair, work collectively to set the rules of the road for trade and technology in the 21st century, and strengthen the global market for our workers and businesses. 

“This work with our allies and partners is already bearing fruit, as evidenced by efforts at the G7, the US-EU Summit, the Quad, the OECD, and the TTC. The Boeing-Airbus deal struck in June of this year is just one example of how this commitment to work with our allies creates more opportunity to sell American products. We will accelerate this progress and look forward to continuing the conversations with our likeminded allies and partners about the impact the PRC’s non-market practices have on them, and how we can work together to find solutions.”

China’s Phase 1 commitments have been met is some areas but widely missed in terms of expanded purchases, particularly on manufactured goods and energy. China’s performance on agricultural goods has been significantly better and close to commitments. There are also large volumes of U.S. exports that are not covered by the Phase I Agreement where China has sharply reduced purchases in 202-2021 despite China’s economic performance. See PIIE, US-China phase one tracker: China’s purchases of US goods, As of August 2021, September 27, 2021, https://www.piie.com/research/piie-charts/us-china-phase-one-tracker-chinas-purchases-us-goods. Thus, it will be interesting to see if outreach to China on the need for ramped up improvements will have any effect in fact.

American businesses have long complained about the tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of imports from China that resulted from the 301 investigation on China’s IP and other practices. Businesses viewed USTR’s exclusion process as an ineffective system for seeking exclusions and felt the process ended up penalizing U.S. companies. Congress has applied pressure on the Biden Administration (as it did on the Trump Administration) to restart and improve the exclusion process. Former USTR Lighthizer criticized some of the legislative efforts to weaken Section 301, require a revised exclusion process and renew certain tariff waiver programs that he viewed as significantly advantaging China. See New York Times, Opinion/Guest Essay (Robert Lighthizer), America Shouldn’t Compete Against China With One Arm Tied Behind Its Back, July 27, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/27/opinion/us-china-trade-tariffs.html. While the Biden team identifies actions which could reduce the loss of effectiveness of the 301 tariffs on China, time will tell how well step two of the new approach works in fact.

Press reports indicate that the U.S. will be raising the host of trade problems not addressed in the Phase I Agreement with China but will not be engaged in a Phase II Agreement negotiation. See Inside U.S. Trade’s World Trade Online, U.S. to renew China talks, restart tariff product exclusions, October 4, 2021, https://insidetrade.com/daily-news/us-renew-china-talks-restart-tariff-product-exclusions (“But the administration is not looking to negotiate a phase-two deal, senior administration officials told reporters on Sunday. ‘We’ll focus on phase-one engagement, we will raise concerns on industrial policies, but we are not seeking a phase-two negotiation,’ one said.”).

That said, the U.S. has been pursuing reforms at the WTO on industrial subsidies and other matters along with some major trading partners (e.g., Japan and the EU on industrial subsidies). While reforms are not likely at the WTO any time soon on industrial subsidies, the U.S. is attempting to apply pressure in a number of fora on China’s policies. Thus, the U.S. is actively pursuing alliances to achieve reforms in China’s policies and distortive practices.

In short, today’s announced trade policy to address China appears to be less confrontational than the actions of the Trump Administration while maintaining for the time being the tariffs that were added following the 301 investigation in 2017-2018. While working to get better compliance with the Phase I Agreement is a positive, many provisions were adopted by China based on prior Administration statements. It will be important to know if these granular provisions once adopted have actually been implemented and whether U.S. trade has benefitted as a result. While the purchase commitments other than agriculture have been widely missed (including some commitments by sectors with heavy state ownership, such as energy), there are specific commitments for 17 goods categories only for 2020 and 2021 and some language about continued growth in the future, it is not clear how aggressive the U.S. will be in pursuing compliance in the last three months of 2021 and moving forward. The same is true in services where the pandemic has undoubtedly contributed to declines in U.S. services exports and the dismal performance compared to commitments. It is also not clear if the U.S. will address the sharp contraction of U.S. exports of products not covered by the Phase I purchase commitments. Such contractions in a period of economic growth by China seem likely driven by Chinese action whether formal or informal to reduce U.S. exports regardless of China’s overall growth.

The serious problems China’s economic model and policies are causing the U.S. and other market economies will be difficult to correct simply through discussions. The Biden’s Administration’s focus on domestic policies and reinvesting in infrastructure, R&D and workers is certainly long overdue (if Congress passes funding), The Biden Administration clearly needs China engaged to address the climate crisis and a number of other global issues. This reality may have contributed to the level of action envisioned on trade relations with China. But today’s announced trade policy towards China seems uninspired and unlikely to make a significant difference in rebalancing trade relations.

Coupled with U.S. reluctance to identify a trade policy agenda that can be used with trading partners to generate new agreements and revise existing agreements, the U.S. approach to China raises the specter of a lost opportunity. Let’s hope that concern proves incorrect.

Biden Administration should join the Joint Statement Initiatives that it is not presently party to

· March 9, 2021 · Joint Statement Initiatives and Joint Declaration · , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , · No Comments

President Biden has made it clear that his Administration will work within multilateral organizations to the extent possible to move the U.S. agenda forward. During the Trump Administration, the U.S. participated actively in the World Trade Organization but was active in only one of the Joint Statement Initiatives that were initiated at the end of the Buenos Aires Ministerial Conference in late 2017.

Thus, the United States is an active participant in the ongoing negotiations following the Joint Statement on Electronic Commerce (WT/MIN(17)/60, 13 December 2017), but is not a party to the other Joint Statement Initiatives. See Joint Ministerial Statement on Services Domestic Regulation (WT/MIN(17)/61, 13 December 2017); Joint Ministerial Statement on Investment Facilitation for Development (WT/MIN(17)/59, 13 December 2017); Joint Ministerial Statement, Declaration on the Establishment of a WTO Informal Work Programme for MSMEs (WT/MIN(17)/58, 13 December 2017); Joint Declaration on Trade and Women’s Economic Empowerment on the Occasion of the WTO Ministerial Conference in Buenos Aires in December 2017.

While India and South Africa have challenged the legitimacy of the Joint Statement Initiatives (JSIs), a great deal of the energy in the WTO in the last several years has been put into the JSIs. See, e.g., February 20, 2021, Will India and South Africa (and others) prevent future relevance of the WTO?, https://currentthoughtsontrade.com/2021/02/20/will-india-and-south-africa-and-others-prevent-future-relevance-of-the-wto/; WTO, Coordinators of joint initiatives cite substantial progress in discussions, 18 December 2020, https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news20_e/jsec_18dec20_e.htm. The WTO press release is copied below.

“The coordinators of the joint initiatives on e-commerce, investment facilitation, services domestic regulation and micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) said on 18 December that substantial progress has been achieved in their respective discussions and that they are on track to deliver concrete results or additional progress at the WTO’s 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) scheduled for next year.

“In their communication, the coordinators noted that they have delivered summary statements to WTO members outlining how far the four initiatives have advanced since they were launched three years ago, where they stand today, and what their next steps in the discussions will be.

“’What these statements clearly show is the substantial progress [of the initiatives] in a short period of time, that they are on track to delivering concrete results or progress at MC12, and that they are contributing to building a more responsive, relevant and modern WTO — which will be critical to restoring global trade and economic growth in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis.’

“’These initiatives have grown into an increasingly important part of the agenda of the WTO, with an expanding number of participants from both the developed and developing worlds that account for a significant part of the WTO’s membership, and based on the principles of openness, transparency and inclusiveness,’ the coordinators added.

“The new joint initiatives were launched at the WTO’s 11th Ministerial Conference in Buenos Aires in December 2017 with the aim of commencing negotiations or discussions on issues of increasing relevance to the world trading system.

“The joint initiative coordinators are Ambassador José Luis Cancela Gómez (Uruguay) for the Informal Working Group on MSMEs; Ambassadors George Mina (Australia), Yamazaki Kazuyuki (Japan) and Tan Hung Seng (Singapore) for the Joint Statement Initiative on E-Commerce; Deputy Permanent Representative Jaime Coghi Arias (Costa Rica) for the Joint Statement Initiative on Services Domestic Regulation; and Ambassador-designate Mathias Francke (Chile) for the Structured Discussions on Investment Facilitation for Development.

“The coordinators noted that the consolidated negotiating text on e-commerce will provide a foundation for intensified negotiations in 2021. They highlighted that the negotiations on services domestic regulation are at a ‘mature stage’, with a genuine potential for an outcome by MC12.

“The coordinators also said that substantive provisions of an investment facilitation agreement are being negotiated by the participating members in this initiative. In addition, they noted the recent announcement by the Informal Working Group on MSMEs of a package of declarations and recommendations to help small business trade internationally.

“The coordinators underscored that the shared and ultimate goal of these initiatives is to strengthen and reinforce the multilateral trading system, that they are open to all WTO members, and that they seek the participation of as many members as possible.

“The coordinators stated: ‘The initiatives on e-commerce, investment facilitation, services domestic regulation, and MSMEs clearly demonstrate that the WTO can respond to new economic and technological challenges in a flexible, pragmatic, and timely way. These initiatives — and their innovative approach to cooperation and negotiation — can provide a valuable illustration of WTO reform in action.’”

While the Joint Declaration Trade and Women’s Economic Empowerment on the Occasion of the WTO Ministerial Conference in Buenos Aires in December 2017 is not treated as a JSI, it does have many Members supporting the Declaration and engaging in the informal work programme.

Some of the other countries participating in all of the JSIs and Joint Declaration

While the number of WTO Members participating in the JSIs and supporting the Joint Declaration vary, the following is a partial list of Members who are signatories to all of the JSIs and the Joint Declaration. Other than the Electronic Commerce initiative, the U.S. is presently not a signatory or participant in any of the other JSIs or Joint Declaration.

Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, European Union, Japan, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Russian Federation, Switzerland are participants in all of the JSIs and supportive of the Joint Declaration. Dozens of other Members are participating in some or many of the JSI’s that the U.S. is not presently supporting or active in.

Conclusion

While the United States has a large agenda of issues it wishes to address at the WTO (including trade and the environment, WTO reform, industrial subsidies), it makes no sense that the United States would not actively participate in work programs where most of the major economies are active and where new rules will be relevant to areas of significance for the United States as well as for trading partners. While the work program on women and trade is in an informal working group, President Biden has made empowerment of women an important priority for his Administration as a range of actions during International Women’s Day made clear. See, e.g., March 8, 2011, March 8, 2021, International Women’s Day — statements of UN Women Executive Director,  heads of WTO, UNCTAD and International Trade Centre, and U.S. Executive Orders and Statement by President Biden, https://currentthoughtsontrade.com/2021/03/08/march-8-2021-international-womens-day-statements-of-un-women-executive-director-heads-of-wto-unctad-and-international-trade-centre-and-u-s-executive-orders-and-statement-by-president-biden/. Similarly, MSMEs are an important part of the U.S. economy and a major driver of economic growth. The U.S. has a very strong services sector which has an interest in domestic regulatory issues both in the U.S. and as addressed overseas. Finally, the U.S. is both a major investor in foreign countries and a recipient of large amounts of foreign investment and has a significant interest in helping the global community address issues involved in investment in developing and least developed countries on a more predictable basis.

Hopefully, the Biden Administration when its USTR nominee is confirmed in the coming days, will opt to engage in all of the JSIs. It is time.

The WTO Informal Ministerial of January 29, 2021 — hope for progress at the WTO in 2021

· January 30, 2021 · Appellate Body reform, COVID-19, electronic commerce and digital trade, Fisheries Subsidies negotiations, Selection of WTO Director-General, Special and Differential Treatment, WTO Informal Ministerial · , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , · No Comments

Switzerland typically hosts an informal ministerial meeting of WTO trade ministers on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum’s January Davos event. This year both were handled remotely.

The informal ministerial was summarized in ten points by the Swiss Confederation President Guy Parmelin at the end of the event. President Parmelin’s statement is available here, https://www.newsd.admin.ch/newsd/message/attachments/65098.pdf, and is copied below.

“Virtual Informal WTO Ministerial Gathering, 29 January 2021

“Personal Concluding Remarks by the Chair, President of the Swiss Confederation and Head of the Federal Department for Economic Affairs, Education and Research, Guy Parmelin, Switzerland

“29 Ministers and high officials representing a broad spectrum of the WTO membership attended this year’s Informal World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Gathering in virtual format. In concluding and with warm thanks to all participants for their contributions, I would like to summarise the main points from our discussions as follows:

“• Ministers stressed the urgency of the swift appointment of a new WTO Director-General as well as the confirmation of the date and venue of the 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12).

“• Ministers reiterated their determination to maintain a credible multilateral trading system and to restore a climate of mutual trust.

“• Ministers expressed their concerns about the enormous social and economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis. They highlighted the relevance of trade and the role of the WTO in containing the pandemic and promoting recovery. Many Ministers underlined the importance of ensuring the development of as well as an equitable and affordable access to medical goods, including vaccines. They addressed ways and means to achieve these goals, including the implementation of measures facilitating trade, the role of intellectual property and transparency.

“• Ministers regretted that the negotiations on fisheries subsidies could not be completed in accordance with the end-2020 deadline foreseen in SDG 14.6. In light of the significance of this process for the sustainability of global fisheries, Ministers concurred that a comprehensive and effective agreement on fisheries subsidies should be concluded as soon as possible. Ministers agreed to step up efforts with a view to finding mutually acceptable solutions consistent with all the elements of the negotiating mandate.

“• Ministers highlighted the importance of restoring a fully functional WTO dispute settlement system, which is a key pillar of the rules-based multilateral trading system.

“• Many participants argued for further progress in agricultural trade policy reform at MC12 and asked for an outcome on domestic support and other issues. The issues of public stockholding and the special safeguard mechanism were highlighted by several Ministers.

“• Many Ministers called for tangible outcomes, by MC12, on the Joint Statement Initiatives. Inter alia finalizing the process on Services Domestic Regulation and making substantial progress on E-commerce and Investment Facilitation as well as on Trade and Women’s Economic Empowerment.

“• The need to reform the WTO was widely acknowledged. A number of Ministers insisted on advancing diverse issues related to the special and differential treatment of developing and least developed countries. Some participants proposed to adjust WTO rules to present-day economic and competitive conditions.

“• Several Ministers supported new initiatives launched in response to global challenges such as the structured discussions on Trade and Environmental Sustainability.

“• Ministers reaffirmed their commitment to engage in the preparations for MC12 in order to advance key issues.”

The participants at this year’s informal ministerial included officials from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chad (coordinator for LDC Group), Chile, China, Egypt, European Union, India, Indonesia, Jamaica (Coordinator ACP Group), Japan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Korea, Mauritius (Coordinator African Group), Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Switzerland (Chair), Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States and three officials with WTO roles — H.E. Mr. David Walker (New Zealand), WTO General Council Chair; H.E. Mr. Santiago Wills (Colombia), WTO Chair of the Negotiating Group on Rules, H.E. Mr. Alan Wolff, WTO Deputy Director-General. The full list with titles is embedded below.

List-of-participants-at-virtual-informal-ministerial-1-29-2021-65099

The good news for the informal ministerial was the position taken by the United States representative who reportedly indicated that the United States was actively reviewing the issue of the next Director-General and was intent on actively working on WTO reform. See, e.g., Inside U.S. Trade’s World Trade Online, Biden administration strikes ‘constructive’ tone in first word on WTO approach, January 29, 2021, https://insidetrade.com/daily-news/biden-administration-strikes-%E2%80%98constructive%E2%80%99-tone-first-word-wto-approach; Politico, Biden administration joins call for ‘swift appointment’ of new WTO head, January 29, 2021, https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/29/biden-world-trade-organization-463820. Under the Trump Administration, the United States had blocked the formation of consensus around Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala based on the U.S. view that Dr. Okonjo-Iweala did not have a sufficient trade background. See, e.g., January 26, 2021, Letter from variety of former U.S. officials to President Biden urges U.S. support for Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as next WTO Director General, https://currentthoughtsontrade.com/2021/01/26/letter-from-variety-of-former-u-s-officials-to-president-biden-urges-u-s-support-for-dr-ngozi-okonjo-iweala-as-next-wto-director-general/. Hopefully, the current review of the issue by the Biden Administration, even ahead of President Biden’s trade team being confirmed by the U.S. Senate, will result in the U.S. joining the support for Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, permitting the WTO to approve a next Director-General.

It was also reported that the United States, consistent with the Biden Administration’s focus on the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change, expressed interest in promoting recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and concluding an ambitious fisheries subsidies agreement. See Inside U.S. Trade’s World Trade Online, Biden administration strikes ‘constructive’ tone in first word on WTO approach, January 29, 2021, https://insidetrade.com/daily-news/biden-administration-strikes-%E2%80%98constructive%E2%80%99-tone-first-word-wto-approach. Fisheries subsidies negotiations have been going on for some twenty years, and many Members have remained more concerned with keeping their subsidies in place than agreeing to disciplines that would create conditions for sustainable fishing going forward. The Interest in the Biden Administration in working within the WTO on joint steps to promote recovery from the pandemic is different from the approach pursued by the Trump Administration which didn’t want to look at actions possible within the WTO (other than limits on export restraints on agricultural goods) while the world was dealing with the pandemic. The U.S. statement should mean more interest in exploring issues like those raised by the Ottawa Group. See November 27, 2020, The Ottawa Group’s November 23 communication and draft elements of a trade and health initiative, https://currentthoughtsontrade.com/2020/11/27/the-ottawa-groups-november-23-communication-and-draft-elements-of-a-trade-and-health-initiative/.

Other issues flagged in the Swiss President’s concluding remarks are issues of particular interest to some or many countries but not topics of clear agreement. For example, while it is likely that the United States will look for ways to resolve its concerns about longstanding problems in the WTO’s dispute settlement system, particularly around the Appellate Body, it is unlikely that there will be a swift resolution of the U.S. concerns, and hence there will likely be a continued impasse for at least much of 2021 on the return of a functioning two-stage dispute settlement system.

Similarly on domestic support in agriculture and other agriculture issues flagged, certain WTO Members have not supported further liberalization in agriculture while pushing for limits on domestic subsidies and rollback of liberalization commitments undertaken in the Uruguay Round. It is unlikely that there will be forward movement on these issues without greater balance in terms of tariff reductions on major agricultural products. Moreover, as noted in a recent post, other major distortions in agriculture that are not presently identified as domestic subsidies include widespread use of child and forced labor on many agricultural products. See January 25, 2021, Child labor and forced labor in cotton production — is there a current WTO mandate to identify and quantify the distortive effects?, https://currentthoughtsontrade.com/2021/01/25/child-labor-and-forced-labor-in-cotton-production-is-there-a-current-wto-mandate-to-identify-and-quantify-the-distortive-effects/; January 24, 2021, Forced labor and child labor – a continued major distortion in international trade for some products, https://currentthoughtsontrade.com/2021/01/24/forced-labor-and-child-labor-a-continued-major-distortion-in-international-trade-for-some-products/. Such practices should be quantified and the level of potential distortion identified so WTO Members can decide how to address them in ongoing agriculture negotiations.

Progress is being made on Joint Statement Initiatives including e-commerce, services domestic regulation, investment facilitation and women’s empowerment. An open issue for these and topics in the sphere of trade and the environment (e.g., environmental goods agreement) is whether benefits provided by participants will be made available on an MFN basis or limited to participants, with the option of other Members to join in the future. See January 18, 2021, Revisiting the need for MFN treatment for sectoral agreements among the willing, https://currentthoughtsontrade.com/2021/01/18/revisiting-the-need-for-mfn-treatment-for-sectoral-agreements-among-the-willing/. For many Members liberalization could be speeded up if benefits in sectoral agreements go to those participating only while leaving the door open for other Members to join later when they see the value for them.

And on the important topic of WTO reform beyond the items listed above, there is little current agreement on how to deal with industrial subsidies and other practices that lead to massive global excess capacity, or on how to address access to special and differential treatment and many other areas of importance to some or many WTO Members.

Deputy Director-General Alan Wolff provided a statement during the virtual informal ministerial urging WTO Members to make 2021 a year of accomplishments. The WTO press release can be found here. WTO News, DDG Wolff urges WTO ministers to address the pandemic and make 2021 a year of action, 29 January 2021, https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news21_e/igo_29jan21_e.htm. DDG Wolff’s statement is copied below.

“My thanks to our Swiss hosts and to President Parmelin both for his remarks today and for his very thoughtful address on the occasion of the 25th anniversary celebration of the WTO last November.

“Ministers, you can make 2021 a year of substantial accomplishments at the WTO.

“There has already been a beginning.  In the first action of the year, Members accounting for most of the world’s agricultural exports committed to refrain from imposing export restrictions on purchases made by the World Food Program.

“The anticipated appointment of a new Director-General will bring needed leadership in moving toward concrete results.  But she can succeed only with your active engagement.

“I urge you not to wait for the Twelfth Ministerial Conference, delayed by the pandemic, to move negotiations forward to positive outcomes. 

“There is no reason why the twenty-year negotiation on fisheries subsidies cannot be concluded successfully — without a sacrifice of ambition — in the next few months.  Success hinges on Members’ willingness to accept a significant level of discipline on their own subsidies.  Political decisions and your active engagement will be required to bring about success.

“I urge you to address ‘trade and health’ forcefully and immediately.  Last year, trade made a vitally important contribution in supplying needed medical supplies to deal with COVID-19.  Proposals as to what more can be done must be deliberated now.  Cooperation on trade can accelerate access to vaccines.  There can be no higher priority.

“Consider how the WTO can further contribute to the economic recovery.  Members can take steps to ensure enhanced transparency, work to eliminate unnecessary barriers and agree that new restrictions will not be imposed.  Trade finance must be restored.  The WTO convened the major international financial organizations and banks to address this need in the aftermath of the financial crisis and it can do so now again.

“’Trade and climate’ must be on the WTO agenda.  Carbon border adjustment measures will likely result in conflicts unless Members engage in joint efforts to find mutually beneficial solutions.  The heightened interest of Members in a broad range of other environmental issues such as plastics pollution and the circular economy can be reflected in new agreements.   The WTO can be more visible as a steward of the planet by reviving and concluding the Environmental Goods Agreement. 

“The Joint Statement Initiatives on e-commerce, investment facilitation, and services domestic regulation can bear fruit this year, building on what was achieved with respect to small businesses last year.  In addition, more progress can be made on the economic empowerment of women through international trade.  

“Concerns over income inequality have been growing.  The WTO’s rules-based system needs to be seen not only among countries but also within countries, as responsive to the needs of workers, farmers and all who wish to engage in international trade.  But international trade rules cannot substitute for domestic policy actions to make growth more inclusive.  When large numbers of people are unhappy with how the economy is working for them, trade will often receive undeserved blame.  The WTO is about fairness.  Its work will never be done in pursuit of that objective, but further progress can be made this year.

“There can be an outcome on agriculture — at least a down-payment and a defined work program going forward.

“During 2021, the WTO can likely welcome new WTO Members, as it continues to move towards universal coverage.  Comoros and Bosnia-Herzegovina may be ready, and over a dozen others are making progress.

“Last but not least, ‘WTO reform’ can become a reality, with actions taken to —

“- facilitate rule-making with wide participation,

“- achieve heightened enforcement through binding dispute settlement in a manner agreed by all, and

“- provide a strong mandate for a Secretariat to deliver all needed support to Members and to achieving the mission of the WTO. 

“We should greet this year with optimism and re-dedication.  With your strong engagement, 2021 can be a year to remember for what is achieved.

“Thank you.”

A presentation from the WTO Secretariat to Ministers needs to be positive, forward looking, aspirational and inspirational. DDG Wolff’s statement yesterday provides all of that. The first item mentioned, the joint pledge from 79 WTO Members not to restrict agricultural exports to the UN World Food Programme for humanitarian purposes is a positive for the world but follows the December failure of the WTO General Council to agree to the same by all WTO Members. See January 23, 2021, WTO and the World Food Programme – action by 79 Members after a failed December effort at the General Council, https://currentthoughtsontrade.com/2021/01/23/wto-and-the-world-food-programme-action-by-79-members-after-a-failed-december-effort-at-the-general-council/.

The challenge for the WTO in 2021 will be whether Members can come together in fact to achieve many of the important opportunities and needs in front of the Membership. While the history of the WTO since 1995 and the major divisions among Members at the present time would strongly suggest that 2021 will not achieve many of the things that are needed and possible, hope springs eternal.

U.S. perspective

The Trump Administration did an excellent job of identifying problems with the operation of the WTO whether from the longstanding failures of the dispute settlement system, to the existential challenges to the viability of the WTO from major Members whose economies have not converged to a full market orientation, to the out-of-date rules around special and differential treatment to all who claim developing country status regardless of economic development of individual members, to the need for greater transparency in many areas, including importantly subsidies, to the failure of the WTO to update rules to address changing technology and trade issues.

The Biden Administration has indicated its intention to work within multilateral institutions, including the WTO. Early action by the United States on the Director-General selection issue could provide positive energy to WTO Members in the coming months. There are topics where success can be made in 2021 either multilaterally or plurilaterally. But a lot of what is needed for meaningful WTO reform will be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve in the short term. Hopefully, the Biden team will stay the course to achieve reform that both returns the WTO playing field to the level agreed at the time of concluding the Uruguay Round, finds ways to deal with the massive distortions not presently covered by WTO rules, works with others to bring the WTO into the 21st century and addresses the critical issues for global prosperity and sustainable development.

WTO reports a 30% decline in commercial services trade in 2nd quarter of 2020 — travel challenges through September will continue to put downward pressure on commercial services trade

· November 4, 2020 · commercial services, COVID-19, travel and tourism · , , , , , , , , , · No Comments

A press release from the WTO on October 23, 2020 was headlined “Services trade drops 30% in Q2 as COVID-19 ravages international travel.” https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news20_e/serv_22oct20_e.htm. One of the charts in the press release shows travel down 81% in the second quarter of 2020, with transport down 31% and all other commercial services down 9%. Within other services, construction exports were down 24%; manufacturing and repair services exports were down 22%; telecommunications services exports were down 8%; insurance services exports were down 3%; financial services exports were down 1%; and computer services exports up 4%, with remaining categories of services exports down 9-14%.

The press release contained a link to monthly trade trends through August which looked at both imports and exports of merchandise and of commercial services. See WTO statistics, latest trends, https://www.wto.org/english/res_e/statis_e/latest_trends_e.htm. Commercial services were presented at an aggregate level and showed percent change for months on a year-on-year basis. For the European Union commercial services exports outside of the EU, the rate of decline from 2019 data declined 29% in May 2020, 22% in June, 21% in July and 20% in August. For the United States, exports of commercial services declined by 31% in May, 30% in June, 29% in July and 29% in August. China’s exports of commercial services went from a decline of 6% in May to a decline of 5% in June, and a !% growth in July and a 6% growth in August. The United Kingdom showed a decline of 27% in commercial exports in May, an 11% decline in June, a 9% decline in July and a 1% increase in August. India showed declines in each of the four months from May-August of 10%, 8%, 11% and 10%. Similarly, Japan showed declines each month in the four months from 24% in May, 23% in June, 35% in July and 36% in August. Korea was the last country shown and had declines each month of 30%, 24%, 27% and 26%.

Travel continues to be the major driver of the decline in commercial services into the third quarter, with the UNWTO reporting in its World Tourism Barometer (Volume 18, Issue 6, October 2020) that international arrivals declined 81% in July and 79% in August compared to year earlier figures. For the first eight months of 2020 compared to the same period in 2019, international arrivals are down 70.1%, with Asia and the Pacific down 78.8%, Europe down 67.7%, the Americas down 64.8%, Africa down 69.% nd the Middle East down 68.7. UNWTO World Tourism Barometer, Volume 18, Issue 6, October 2020, https://www.e-unwto.org/doi/epdf/10.18111/wtobarometereng.2020.18.1.6.

While travel restrictions through August had been being reduced in a number of countries, the huge increase in Europe of new COVID-19 cases in October and early November has resulted in increased restrictions in a number of European countries and will likely mean extended challenges for international travel to and from Europe, as well as cut backs in domestic travel for the remainder of 2020.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) puts out various publications including an Air Passenger Market Analysis. The September issue shows that revenue passenger kilometers (RPKs) were down 88.8% in September 2020 for international air travel, bringing the January-September decline to 72.3%. Domestic air travel by contrast was down, but “just” 43.3% in September (51.2% for January – September). Thus, the total market (international and domestic) was down 72.8% in September and 64.7% for the first nine months of 2020. IATA, Air Passenger Market Analysis, The recovery in passenger travel slows amid elevated risks, September 2020, https://www.iata.org/en/iata-repository/publications/economic-reports/air-passenger-monthly-analysis—september-2020/.

While the travel sector encompasses far more than air travel, the challenges facing the airline industry are similar to challenges faced by other parts of the sector, although other parts of the sector are often far more fragmented (restaurants, bars, hotels, entertainment venues) and without the resources to survive the prolonged depression in demand due to the pandemic.

IATA provided a powerpoint analysis by their Chief Economist, Brian Pearce, on the 6th of October 2020, entitled “COVID-19, Outlook for airlines’ cash burn,” https://www.iata.org/en/iata-repository/publications/economic-reports/outlook-for-airlines-cash-burn/. The powerpoint reviews the steep reduction in stock prices for airlines compared to other stocks, outlines the extraordinary level of aid the industry has received from governments ($160 billion) and suppliers ($20 billion), shows the timing when government support is ending, graphs the slow recovery in passenger revenues, and explores the challenge for the airlines to downsize costs sufficiently to deal with the drastic contraction in revenues, and shows an industry cash burn (expenditures exceeding revenues) of $51 billion in the 2nd quarter of 2020 and a projected further cash burn of $77 billion in the second half of 2021. The presentation also shows that many airlines can’t sustain for long the cash burn and ends on the sobering note that airlines are not expected to turn cash positive until 2022.

Press reports show challenges for airlines in many parts of the world. See, e.g., South China Morning Post (Bloomberg article), November 3, 2020, Asia airlines seen staving off pandemic ruin for now as troubles head West, https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/3108066/asia-airlines-seen-staving-pandemic-ruin-now-financial-troubles-head-west; BBC, November 3, 2020, Covid threatens to ground India’s aviation industry, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-54729074.

The U.S. has seen tens of thousands of airline employees furloughed or dismissed since October 1st as government support came to an end in September, and Congress and the Administration have not been able to agree on a further package of supports for the industry or the nation more broadly as the pandemic continues to grow in size in the U.S. The surge in new cases in the United States is also resulting in various states imposing restrictions on bars and restaurants, and the hotel and entertainment industries continue to be severely affected by declines in demand.

Similarly, much of Europe has been reimposing at least some restrictions that affect the travel sector in an effort to regain control over the pandemic.

All of the above is simply to point out that the decline in commercial services trade reported by the WTO last month for the second quarter of 2020 is likely to continue through the remainder of 2020, led by the devastating contraction of the travel sector.

WTO Dispute Settlement Body Meeting of August 28, 2020 — How disputes are being handled in the absence of reform of the Appellate Body

· August 29, 2020 · Appellate Body reform, WTO Dispute Settlement · , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , · No Comments

No forward movement has been made on resolving the impasse of the WTO’s Appellate Body which effectively ceased to operate for new appeals after December 10, 2019 when the number of active Appellate Body members fell below the minimum of three needed to hear appeals. At every monthly Dispute Settlement Body meeting, one of the Members presents the proposal to start the process of selecting new Appellate Body members and the U.S. indicates it is not in a position to agree to that action.

While the impasse continues, Members are dealing with how to proceed on specific disputes that have been filed and how to deal with panel decisions that get issued. For the EU and 22 other Members who are parties to the multi-party interim appeal arrangement (MPIA), disputes involving two members of the MPIA are handled through the MPIA after a panel decision if one or both parties are dissatisifed with the panel decision. Current members of the MPIA are Australia, Benin, Brazil, Canada, China, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, the European Union, Guatemala, Hong Kong (China), Iceland, Mexico, Montenegro, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Pakistan, Singapore, Switzerland, Ukraine and Uruguay. This means that more than 110 WTO Members are not parties to the MPIA including the United States, Japan, Korea, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Argentina, Peru, Egypt, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, the Russian Federation and many others.

Disputes between all other WTO Members or between other Members and one of the MPIA members require the parties to the dispute either before the panel decision or afterwards to decide how they will proceed. Concerns of many WTO Members is that a party dissatisfied with a panel decision will take an appeal which will effectively stop resolution of the matter as an appeal cannot be heard while there is no functioning Appellate Body.

MPIA members can take appeals where they are in a dispute with a non-MPIA member instead of seeking resolution through other means. For example, the Russian Federation is not a member of the MPIA. Their dispute with the EU on its antidumping methodology resulted in a panel decision that the EU found problematic. The EU filed an appeal on August 28, 2020. See WTO, Dispute Settlement, EU appeals panel report on EU dumping methodologies, duties on Russian imports, https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news20_e/ds494apl_28aug20_e.htm. When raised at the August 28 dispute settlement body (DSB) meeting, Russia provided the following comment:

“The Russian Federation made a statement regarding the European Union’s appeal of the panel ruling in in DS494 (https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds494_e.htm) (EU —
Cost Adjustment Methodologies and Certain Anti-Dumping Measures on Imports from Russia). Russia said it was disappointed with the EU’s decision and that that the EU’s action, in the absence of a functioning Appellate Body, essentially meant that the matter was being appealed “into the void.” The EU was seeking to escape its obligations by not trying to resolve the dispute,
Russia said.” https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news20_e/dsb_28aug20_e.htm.

Interestingly, the EU has been working to be able to retaliate on any WTO Member who is not a party to the MPIA who appeals from a panel decision where the EU is a party. Presumably they understand that their action will encourage countries like the Russian Federation to take unilateral action against the EU where the EU appeals a panel decision instead of seeking a mutually agreeable solution.

The United States has reviewed at prior DSB meetings that there are many ways for Members to resolve disputes between themselves. At the recent DSB meeting, the U.S. in its prepared statement, after reviewing its ongoing concerns with the Appellate Body and the need to understand why the Appellate Body ignored the clear limits on its authority under the Dispute Settlement Understanding, provided examples of how Members are resolving disputes since December 10, 2019:

“ As discussions among Members continue, the dispute settlement system continues to function.

“ The central objective of that system remains unchanged: to assist the parties to find a solution to their dispute. As before, Members have many methods to resolve a dispute, including through bilateral engagement, alternative dispute procedures, and third-party adjudication.

“ As noted at prior meetings of the DSB, Members are experimenting and deciding what makes the most sense for their own disputes.

“ For instance, in Indonesia – Safeguard on Certain Iron or Steel Products (DS490/DS496), Chinese Taipei, Indonesia, and Vietnam reached procedural understandings that included an agreement not to appeal any compliance panel report.3

“ Similarly, in the dispute United States – Anti-Dumping Measures on Certain Oil Country Tubular Goods from Korea (DS488), Korea and the United States agreed not to appeal the report of any compliance panel.4

“ Australia and Indonesia have agreed not to appeal the panel report in the dispute Australia – Anti-Dumping Measures on A4 Copy Paper (DS529).5

“ Parties should make efforts to find a positive solution to their dispute, consistent with the aim of the WTO dispute settlement system.

“ The United States will continue to insist that WTO rules be followed by the WTO dispute settlement system. We will continue our efforts and our discussions with Members and with the Chair to seek a solution on these important issues.

“3 ‘Understanding between Indonesia and Chinese Taipei regarding Procedures under Articles 21 and 22 of the DSU’, (WT/DS490/3) (April 11, 2019), para. 7 (‘The parties agree that if, on the date of the circulation of the panel report under Article 21.5 of the DSU, the Appellate Body is composed of fewer than three Members available to serve on a division in an appeal in these proceedings, they will not appeal that report under Articles 16.4 and 17 of the DSU.’) and ‘Understanding between Indonesia and Viet Nam regarding Procedures under Articles 21 and 22 of the DSU’, WT/DS496/14 (March 22, 2019), para. 7 (‘The parties agree that if, on the date of the circulation of the panel report under Article 21.5 of the DSU, the Appellate Body is composed of fewer than three Members available to serve on a division in an appeal in these proceedings, they will not appeal that report under Articles 16.4 and 17 of the DSU.’).

“4 ‘Understanding between the Republic of Korea and the United States regarding Procedures under Articles 21 and 22 of the DSU’, (WT/DS488/16) (February 6, 2020), para. 4 (‘Following circulation of the report of the Article 21.5 panel, either party may request adoption of the Article 21.5 panel report at a meeting of the DSB within 60 days of circulation of the report. Each party to the dispute agrees not to appeal the report of the Article 21.5 panel pursuant to Article 16.4 of the DSU.’).

“5 Minutes of the Meeting of the Dispute Settlement Body on January 27, 2020 (WT/DSB/M/440), paras. 4.2 (‘Indonesia also wished to thank Australia for working together with Indonesia in a spirit of cooperation in order to reach an agreement not to appeal the Panel Report’ and 4.3 (‘Australia and Indonesia had agreed not to appeal the Panel Report and to engage in good faith negotiations of a reasonable period of time for Australia to bring its measures into conformity with the DSB’s recommendations and rulings, in accordance with Article 21.3(b) of the DSU.’).”

Statements by the United States at the Meeting of the WTO Dispute Settle- ment Body, Geneva, August 28, 2020 at 14, https://geneva.usmission.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/290/Aug28.DSB_.Stmt_.as-deliv.fin_.public.pdf.

Thus, there are ways for WTO Members to resolve disputes between themselves even with the Appellate Body inoperative. Some countries, like Australia, have sought positive resolutions where the other disputing party is not a member of MPIA. To date, the European Union has not sought resolution with members who are not party to the MPIA but have rather filed appeals so cases will sit in limbo until such time as the impasse is resolved.

Concluding comments

While each of the eight candidates to become the next Director-General of the WTO believe resolution of the dispute settlement system impasse is an important priority for the WTO, they differ in how quickly they believe Members will be able to overcome the impasse — Dr. Jesus Seade (Mexico) believes it can be resolved in the first 100 days. Amb. Tudor Ulianovschi believes that the challenges presented will not be resolved ahead of the 12th Ministerial Conference in 2021 but will be resolved sometime thereafter. Most other candidates hold out hope that the impasse can be resolved by the next Ministerial in 2021. Thus, the current situation of no functioning Appellate Body may continue for some time.

The U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer in an Op Ed last week in the Wall Street Journal suggested that reform of the dispute settlement system is critical but may involve changing the system from its existing two-tiered configuration under the DSU to a one-tier process more like commercial arbitration. If that is the path that the United States pursues, resolution of the current situation will take years. See August 24, 2020,  USTR Lighthizer’s Op Ed in the Wall Street Journal – How to Set World Trade Straight, https://currentthoughtsontrade.com/2020/08/24/ustr-lighthizers-op-ed-in-the-wall-street-journal-how-to-set-world-trade-straight/.

Similarly, if dispute settlement reform is lumped into the broader WTO reform being discussed, the timing will be significantly delayed if reform of the WTO is to be meaningful and return the organization to a place of relevance in the 21st century.

With the queue of panel decisions that are yet due this year involving some high profile issues (e.g., national security actions by the United States on steel and aluminum and retaliation taken by many trading partners) and with the recent panel report on the U.S. countervailing duty order on Canadian softwood lumber, pressure will likely build on WTO Members to find a lasting solution to the current impasse. Increased pressure suggests heightened tensions in an organization already suffering from distrust among Members and, as a result, largely nonfunctioning pillars of negotiation, notification/monitoring, dispute settlement. In short, 2021 promises to be a challenging environment for the WTO Members and the incoming Director-General.

Recent Congressional Research Service report, Global Economic Effects of COVID-19

· August 26, 2020 · COVID-19 · , , , , , , , , · No Comments

Governments around the world have been struggling with the health and economic costs of the COVID-19 pandemic. Multilateral institutions generate a great deal of information on the pandemic and its effects and many countries do as well.

On August 21, 2020, the Congressional Research Service released an updated report on Global Economic Effects of COVID-19, Report No. R46270, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46270.

While the United States went through a huge resurgence of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths in the June-August 2020 time period, there have been smaller resurgences in a number of other developed countries in the July – August time frame including Australia, Japan, Korea, France, Germany, Spain and others. At the same time, the pandemic is raging in much of the Americas (other than Canada), in India, in some parts of Asia and increasingly in a number of African countries. While it is likely that the world total on new cases peaked in the two weeks ending August 16, the two weeks that end on August 30 will be very close to those numbers (3.6 million cases),

Most global economic outlook projections have been premised on the pandemic’s worst economic effects being in the 2nd quarter of 2020 with a strong recovery in the third quarter and a continued rebound through 2021. Those projections are increasingly at risk as major economies struggle to return to normal without the need for further economic restrictions to address new surges of the pandemic. In the United States, despite efforts by the House of Representatives to pass legislation several months ago to continue the stimulus to the economy to help those unemployed and avoid massive evictions, help schools prepare for the fall season and state and local governments deal with the massive shortfall in revenue among other matters, the Senate didn’t take up legislation until late July and had trouble agreeing on any additional funding. The impasse between the Democrats and the Republicans and White House has led to limited if any support in August and heading into the fall with the potential for millions of additional job losses and reopenings that are not adequately prepared. The opening of schools in recent weeks has had a number of challenges and many schools are proceeding virtually in an effort to remain safe but putting downward pressure on the economy. Thus, the global challenges are likely to worsen in the remaining months of 2020 making the global economic recovery slower and later than has been hoped.

The first pages of the CRS report (pages 5-8, Overview (excluding Table 1)) do an excellent job of reviewing the challenges for the United States and the world and re copied below.

“Overview

“The World Health Organization (WHO) first declared COVID-19 a world health emergency in January 2020. Since then, the emergency has evolved into a global public health and economic crisis that has affected the $90 trillion global economy beyond anything experienced in nearly a century. Governments are attempting to balance often-competing policy objectives between addressing the public health crisis and economic considerations that include, but are not limited to these:

“ Confronting ballooning budget deficits weighed against increasing spending to support unemployed workers and social safety nets.

“ Providing financial support for national health systems that are under pressure to develop vaccines while also funding efforts to care for and safeguard citizens.

“ Implementing monetary and fiscal policies that support credit markets and sustain economic activity, while also assisting businesses under financial distress.

“ Implementing fiscal policies to stimulate economic activity, while consumers in developed economies sharply increase their savings as households face limited spending opportunities, or a form of involuntary saving, and concerns over their jobs, incomes, and the course of their economies, or precautionary saving.

“ Intervention by central banks and monetary authorities generally in sovereign debt and corporate bond markets to stabilize markets and insure liquidity are raising concerns among some analysts that this activity is compromising the ability of the markets to perform their traditional functions of pricing risk and allocating capital.

“ Fiscal and monetary policies that have been adopted to date to address the immediate impact of the health crisis compared with the mix of such policies between assisting households, firms, or state and local governments that may be needed going forward should the health and economic crises persist.

“Policymakers and financial and commodity market participants generally have been hopeful of a global economic recovery starting in the third quarter of 2020, assuming there is not a second wave of infections. Some forecasts, however, raise the prospects that the pandemic could negatively affect global economic growth more extensively and for a longer period of time with a slow, drawn-out recovery. Without a quick resolution of the health crisis, the economic crisis may persist longer than most forecasters have assumed and require policymakers to weigh the most effective mix of additional fiscal and monetary policies that may be required without the benefit of a relevant precedent to follow. Additional measures may have to balance the competing requirements of households, firms, and state and local governments. Various U.S. States reversed course in late June to impose or reimpose social distancing guidelines and close down businesses that had begun opening as a result of a rise in new confirmed cases of COVID-19, raising the prospect of a delayed recovery.

“In its July 29 policy statement and subsequent press conference, the U.S. Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) indicated that the rise in COVID-19 cases in the United States since mid-June was weighing down economic growth and that, ‘The path of the economy will depend significantly on the course of the virus. The ongoing public health crisis will weigh heavily on economic activity, employment, and inflation in the near term, and poses considerable risks to the economic outlook over the medium term.’

“Differences in policy approaches between countries are threatening to inflict longer-term damage to the global economy by impairing international political, trade, and economic relations, particularly between countries that promote nationalism and those that argue for a coordinated international response to the pandemic. Policy differences are also straining relations between developed and developing economies and between northern and southern members of the Eurozone, challenging alliances and conventional concepts of national security, and raising questions about the future of global leadership.

“In some countries, the pandemic has elevated the importance of public health as a national security issue and as a national economic priority on a par with traditional national security concerns such as terrorism, cyberattacks, and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.1 The pandemic-related economic and human costs could have long-term repercussions for economies through the tragic loss of life and job losses that derail careers and permanently shutter businesses. Fiscal and monetary measures implemented to prevent a financial crisis and sustain economic activity may also inadvertently be adding to income and wealth disparities. Within some countries, the economic fallout may be adding to widening racial and socio-economic cleavages and increasing social unrest. In speaking about these costs for Americans, Federal Reserve Chairman Powell said on May 19, 2020,

“‘Since the pandemic arrived in force just two months ago, more than 20 million people have lost their jobs, reversing nearly 10 years of job gains. This precipitous drop in economic activity has caused a level of pain that is hard to capture in words, as lives are upended amid great uncertainty about the future.2’

“The virus was first diagnosed in Wuhan, China, but has been detected in over 200 countries and all U.S. states.3 In early March 2020, the focal point of infections shifted from China to Europe, especially Italy, but by April, the focus had shifted to the United States, where the number of infections was accelerating. The infection has sickened more than 20.2 million people, about one-fourth in the United States, with over 800,000 fatalities. At one point, more than 80 countries had closed their borders to arrivals from countries with infections, ordered businesses to close, instructed their populations to self-quarantine, and closed schools to an estimated 1.5 billion children.4

“Over the 22-week period from mid-March to mid-August 2020, 56.3 million Americans filed for unemployment insurance.5 On a seasonally adjusted basis, the number of insured unemployed workers was 14.8 million in mid-August, down from a peak of 25 million in mid-May, as indicated in Table 1. The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs in the week


1 Harris, Shane and Missy Ryan, To Prepare for the Next Pandemic, the U.S. Needs to Change its National Security Priorities, Experts Say, The Washington Post, June 16, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/to-prepare-for-the-next-pandemic-the-us-needs-to-change-its-national-security-priorities-experts-say/2020/06/16/b99807c0-aa9a-11ea-9063-e69bd6520940_story.html.
2 Powell, Jerome H. Coronavirus and CARES Act, Testimony before the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, U.S. Senate, May 19, 2020.
3 “Mapping the Spread of the COVID-19 in the U.S. and Worldwide,” Washington Post Staff, Washington Post, March 4, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/01/22/mapping-spread-new-COVID-19/?arc404=true.
4 “The Day the World Stopped: How Governments Are Still Struggling to Get Ahead of the COVID-19,” The Economist, March 17, 2020. https://www.economist.com/international/2020/03/17/governments-are-still-struggling-to-get-ahead-of-the-COVID-19.
5 Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims, Department of Labor, August 20, 2020. https://www.dol.gov/; Romm, Tony and Jeff Stein, 2.4 Million Americans Filed Jobless Claims Last Week, Bringing Nine Week Total to 38.6 Million, The Washington Post, May 21, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/05/21/unemployment-claims-coronavirus/

ending August 1, totaled 28 million, up from 1.7 million in the comparable week in 2019. The insured unemployment rate was 10.2%, also down from the peak reached in early May. On May 8, 2020, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that 20 million Americans lost their jobs in April 2020, pushing the total number of unemployed Americans to 23 million,6 out of a total civilian labor force of 158 million. The increase pushed the national unemployment rate to 14.7% (with some caveats), the highest since the Great Depression of the 1930s.7 On June 6, BLS reported that nonfarm employment increased by 2.5 million in May, reducing the total number of unemployed Americans to 21 million8 and pushing the unemployment rate down to 13.5%, again with some caveats.9 On July 2, the BLS also released data on the employment situation in June, indicating that nonfarm payroll rose by 4.8 million, lowering the unemployment rate to 11.5%; on August 7, the BLS reported that nonfarm payrolls rose by 1.8 Million in July, lowering the number of unemployed individuals to 16.4 million and the unemployment rate to 10.2%.10

“Preliminary data also indicate that U.S. GDP fell by 9.5% in the second quarter of 2020 from the previous quarter, but at an annualized rate of 33%, the largest quarterly decline in U.S. GDP recorded over the past 70 years.11 In its May 27 Beige Book analysis, the Federal Reserve (Fed) reported that economic activity had fallen sharply in each of the 12 Federal Reserve districts.12

“In Europe, governments have attempted a phased reopening of businesses.13 After several months of data indicating an economic rebound had begun in the Eurozone, surveys of business activity in August reportedly indicated that the recovery was slowing amid a rise in new COVID-19 cases and countries reimposing new quarantines and lockdowns in various parts of the Euro area.14 Industrial production across the Eurozone as a whole fell by 17% in April, raising the annual decline to 28%, surpassing the contraction experienced during the global financial crisis.15 The European Commission’s July 8, 2020, forecast projected that EU economic growth in 2020 could contract by 8.3% and only partially recover in 2021.16 In addition, a July forecast by the European Commission forecasts a larger drop in gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020 among European economies than it had forecasted in its spring report, with a less vibrant recovery in 2021. Second quarter data indicate that economic growth in the EU contracted by 11.7% from the first quarter and by 14.1% compared with the same quarter in 2019.17 Second quarter data indicate the UK economy contracted by 20.4%, the largest quarterly decline on record.

“After protracted talks, European leaders agreed on July 21 to a new €750 billion (about $859 billion) pandemic economic assistance package to support European economies. Second quarter data also indicated that employment among the EU countries fell by 2.6%, or 5.5 million jobs. The jobs data, however, does not include roughly 45 million people, or a third of the workforce in Germany, France, Britain, Italy, and Spain, currently covered by employment protection programs.18 Similarly, Japan reported on August 17 that its economy contracted by 7.8% in the second quarter of 2020, compared with the previous quarter, or at an annual rate of 27.8%.19

“On May 27, 2020, European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde warned that the Eurozone economy could contact by 8% to 12% in 2020, a level of damage to the Eurozone economy that Lagarde characterized as being unsurpassed in peacetime.20 Foreign investors have pulled an estimated $26 billion out of developing Asian economies not including more than $16 billion out of India, increasing concerns about a major economic recession in Asia. Some estimates indicate that 29 million people in Latin America could fall into poverty, reversing a decade of efforts to narrow income inequality. Some analysts are also concerned that Africa, after escaping the initial spread of infections, is now facing a sharp increase in rates of infection outside South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria, Algeria, and Ghana, where most of the infections have occurred to date.21

“1 Harris, Shane and Missy Ryan, To Prepare for the Next Pandemic, the U.S. Needs to Change its National Security Priorities, Experts Say, The Washington Post, June 16, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/to-prepare-for-the-next-pandemic-the-us-needs-to-change-its-national-security-priorities-experts-say/2020/06/16/b99807c0-aa9a-11ea-9063-e69bd6520940_story.html.

“2 Powell, Jerome H. Coronavirus and CARES Act, Testimony before the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, U.S. Senate, May 19, 2020.

“3 ‘Mapping the Spread of the COVID-19 in the U.S. and Worldwide,’ Washington Post Staff, Washington Post, March 4, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/01/22/mapping-spread-new-COVID-19/?arc404=true.

“4 ‘The Day the World Stopped: How Governments Are Still Struggling to Get Ahead of the COVID-19,’ The Economist, March 17, 2020. https://www.economist.com/international/2020/03/17/governments-are-still-struggling-to-get-ahead-of-the-COVID-19.

“5 Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims, Department of Labor, August 20, 2020. https://www.dol.gov/; Romm, Tony and Jeff Stein, 2.4 Million Americans Filed Jobless Claims Last Week, Bringing Nine Week Total to 38.6 Million, The Washington Post, May 21, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/05/21/unemployment-claims-coronavirus/.

“6 This total does not include 10.9 million workers who were working part time not by choice and 9.9 million individuals who were seeking employment.

“7 The Employment Situation-April 2020, Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 8, 2020. https://www.bls.gov/.

“8 This total does not include 10.6 million workers who were working part time not by choice and 9.4 million individuals who were seeking employment.

“9 The Employment Situation-May 2020, Bureau of Labor Statistics, June 5, 2020, https://www.bls.gov/. BLS indicated that some individuals were misclassified in April and May. Instead of being classified as unemployed, they were misclassified as employed, but absent from work due to coronavirus-related business closures. If such individuals had been classified as unemployed, the unemployment rate would have been 5 percentage points higher in April.

“10 The Employment Situation-July 2020, Bureau of Labor Statistics, August 7, 2020. https://www.bls.gov/. The unemployment number does not include 8.4 million workers who were working part time not by choice and 7.7 million individuals seeking employment. In addition, BLS indicated that some workers had been misclassified as employed, but should have been classified as unemployed, which would have raised the rate of unemployment by one percentage point.

“11 Gross Domestic Product, 2nd Quarter 2020 (Advance Estimate) and Annual Update, Bureau of Economic Analysis, July 30, 2020. https://www.bea.gov/news/2020/gross-domestic-product-2nd-quarter-2020-advance-estimate-and-annual-update.

“12 The Beige Book, Federal Reserve System, May 27, 2020. https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/beige-book-default.htm.

“13 Stott, Michael, Coronavirus Set to Push 29m Latin Americans Into Poverty, Financial Times, April 24, 2020. https://www.ft.com/content/3bf48b80-8fba-410c-9bb8-31e33fffc3b8; Hall, Benjamin, Coronavirus Pandemic Threatens Livelihoods of 59m European Workers, Financial Times, April 19, 2020, https://www.ft.com/content/36239c82-84ae-4cc9-89bc-8e71e53d6649, Romei, Valentina and Martin Arnold, Eurozone Economy Shrinks by Fastest Rate on Record, Financial Times, April 30, 2020, https://www.ft.com/content/dd6cfafa-a56d-48f3-a9fd-aa71d17d49a8.

“14 Arnold, Martin, Eurozone Economic Rebound is Losing Steam, Surveys Suggest, Financial Times, August 21, 2020. https://www.ft.com/content/cc4fa3df-40e7-4e19-be9f-9d01efb74f69. Chazan, Guy and Anna Gross, Europe Battles to Contain Surge in Coronavirus Cases. Financial Times, July 29, 2020. https://www.ft.com/content/bcddc297-b7f2-444d-908f-54e8ce6f4f98.

“15 Arnold, Martin, Eurozone Industrial Production Falls by Record 17.1% in April, Financial Times, June 12, 2020. https://www.ft.com/content/e3301cd6-27ce-35f0-829a-c6613849b378.

“16 European Economic Forecast Summer 2020, European Commission, July 8, 2020.

“17 Newsrelease, Eurostat, August 14, 2020.

“18 Ben Hall, Ben, Delphine Strauss, and Daniel Dombey, Millions of European Jobs at Risk When Furlough Support Ends, Financial Times, August 14, 2020. https://www.ft.com/content/0f01a9ed-5b15-4e2d-921c-6eed7a80d0bd.

“19 Quarterly Estimates of GDP for April – June 2020 (First Preliminary Estimates), Cabinet Office, August 17, 2020.

“20 Arnold, Martin, Coronavirus Hit to Eurozone Economy Set to Dwarf Financial Crisis, Financial Times, May 27, 2020. https://www.ft.com/content/a01424e8-089d-4618-babe-72f88184ac57.

“21 Pilling, David, The Pandemic is Getting Worse: Africa Prepares for Surge in Infections, Financial Times, July 20, 2020.” https://www.ft.com/content/1b3274ce-de3b-411d-8544-a024e64c3542.

The complete CRS report is embedded below.

CRS-8-21-2020-Global-Economic-Effects-of-COVID-19

Conclusion

The world is going through the worst economic contraction since World War II. The pandemic has affected the health of people around the world, with close to 24 million confirmed cases and likely a multiple of that considering the extent of infections in people without symptoms. More than 800,000 people have died, a number which is also likely to be low based on the number of people who die but never are hospitalized and thus not likely reported as COVID-19 related in many countries.

Most developed countries have followed the tried and true methodology of aggressive testing, tracing, and quarantining to slow the spread of the pandemic and then drastically reduce the number of new cases. For most developed countries this included some form of stay at home orders, social distancing, mask wearing with severe negative effects on many economic sectors. The United States has largely been alone among developed countries in having a generally poor, unorganized and mixed message response to the spread of the coronavirus. Yet other developed countries, as they have reopened, have experienced some of the rebound in cases that the United States experienced on steroids these last three months. The result has been deep economic contraction in the second quarter of 2020 and slower economic recovery likely in the third and fourth quarters of 2020.

At the same time, developing countries have become the center of the pandemic in recent months and may face greater health care challenges because of their infrastructure. These countries are facing severe economic contractions as well both from internal demand declines and from international market contractions.

While the billions being poured into development of vaccines and therapeutics will hopefully result in tools to reduce and then stop the spread of the pandemic, 2021 is the early side of likely massive amounts of vaccines and therapeutics being available.

With the ongoing economic challenges, worsening debt structure of nearly all countries and the collapse of many businesses and employment (e.g., travel and tourism employment is projected to drop by 100-120 million jobs in 2020), the world needs greater coordination of recovery strategies, increased attention on keeping global markets open (and limiting export restraints) and renewed attention to see that vaccines and therapeutics are equitably available to all at affordable prices as new products become available.

The race to become the next WTO Director-General — where candidates are on important issues: reform of the Appellate Body

· August 10, 2020 · Appellate Body reform, Selection of WTO Director-General · , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , · No Comments

[Post updated on August 27 to incorporate comments by Amb. Tudor Ulianovschi of Moldova made at the WITA webinar on August 26. The post was previously updated on August 11 to incorporate comments by Minister Yoo Myung-hee of Korea at the WITA webinar that morning]

With less than a month to go before the last phase of the selection process begins for the next Director-General of the World Trade Organization, the eight candidates have engaged in large numbers of meetings (in person or virtually) with Missions in Geneva, with trade officials in capitals and have done outreach to the media and have participated in webinars put on by various organizations. These meetings and outreach are part of Phase 2 of the selection process where candidates make themselves known to the WTO Members. This phase ends on September 7.

All candidates are understandably guarded on specifics about many issues, all recognizing the WTO is a member driven organization. Similarly, with sharp divisions within the WTO membership, candidates are also careful not to express support for any of the major Members as a general rule. At the same time, all candidates have been asked about current pressing issues before the WTO and the topic of overall WTO reform.

Today’s post looks at how candidates have positioned themselves on one such issue — the impasse over the functioning of the Appellate Body.

Presentations to the General Council and Later Press Conferences

During the three days of meetings of the General Council in mid-July, each candidate was able to provide a statement of his/her vision for the WTO, answer questions posed by WTO Members and also had a thirty minute press conference. In a prior post, I had summarized the prepared statements and the press conferences. See July 19, 2020, The eight candidates for WTO Director-General meet the General Council – recap of prepared statements and press conferences, https://currentthoughtsontrade.com/2020/07/19/the-eight-candidates-for-wto-director-general-meet-the-general-council-recap-of-prepared-statements-and-press-conferences/. In addition to prepared statements and press conferences after meeting with the General Council, I am also including selected comments made by the candidates during webinars held by the Washington International Trade Association (WITA) and the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI) with six of the candidates (through August 6; a seventh is scheduled for August 11).

On the topic of the Appellate Body, the eight candidates had the following public comments:

Dr. Jesus Seade Kuri (Mexico):

From his prepared statement to the General Council, Dr. Seade made it clear that a top priority for him if selected as the next Director-General would be to get the Appellate Body refunctioning, something he would work to see happened in the first 100 days he was Director-General: “It is also necessary to give back to the dispute settlement mechanism its strength and certainty.” (Google translation from Spanish) “Within the first hundred days: I will work closely with members in seeking to * * * ii. restore the second instance of the dispute settlement system.” (Google translation from French).

In the press conference, Dr. Seade was asked how he would address the Appellate Body impasse. My notes on his answer are as follows:

On the question of the Appellate Body impasse, Dr. Seade noted that none of the Members were denouncing any provision within the Dispute Settlement Understanding. Rather concerns had been voiced on how DSU provisions had been applied. Dr. Seade believes that what is missing is the way to operationalize the role of the Dispute Settlement Body (all WTO Members sitting as the DSB) which is organizationally above the Appellate Body but for which there are currently no procedures for communications from the DSB to the Appellate Body to address issues generally (vs. in specific disputes). Such procedures were needed. He also had other ideas for how to resolve the impasse that he was interested in reviewing with Members to see if there could be movement. On the question of the interim arbitration arrangement, Dr. Seade thought a temporary arrangement made sense as it provided Members a second stage to dispute settlement as provided in the DSU. Key is finding a solution to the impasse so the two-tier dispute settlement system is restored for all.

WITA had a webinar with Dr. Seade on July 7. https://www.wita.org/event-videos/conversation-with-wto-dg-candidate-seade/. During the webinar, Dr. Seade addressed the need to get the Appellate Body functioning again. In pointing out why he would be the right person to be the next Director-General, Dr. Seade reviewed the importance of bringing to the table a knowledge of the underlying Uruguay Round negotiations and the purpose of the provisions in the agreements. He asked “Why is the U.S. frustrated with the Appellate Body?” It is because of the history of the negotiations and what was actually agreed to. Dr. Seade also viewed restoring the dispute settlement system as important to address problems other Members are having with China (in addition to negotiations on issues like industrial subsidies). He stated that the U.S. points about problems with the Appellate Body are good. The U.S. is not challenging the Dispute Settlement Understanding (“DSU”), but rather is arguing that the provisions of the DSU are not being respected by the Appellate Body. Thus, the problem is with the application of the DSU not the terms of the DSU as such. Dr. Seade believes that it is possible to find solutions that all Members can live with. He noted that the Appellate Body issue reflects different views of the DSU by the EU and the U.S.

Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (Nigeria):

From her prepared statement, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala had relatively short statements about the Appellate Body: “A refreshed WTO must find solutions to the stalemate over dispute settlement. It is clear that a rules-based system without a forum in which a breach of the rules can be effectively arbitrated loses credibility over time.” “I would also prioritize updating the rulebook, unlocking the dispute settlement system, working on transparency and notification, enhancing the work of regular bodies, and strengthen the Secretariat.”

While Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was asked many questions at the press conference, none dealt with the Appellate Body.

WITA had a webinar with Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala on July 21. https://www.wita.org/event-videos/conversation-with-wto-dg-candidate-dr-ngozi-okonjo-iweala/

Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala noted that addressing the Appellate Body impasse was a priority for the next Ministerial and repeated her view that a WTO without effective dispute settlement would lose its legitimacy over time.

In response to a question on how she would restore dispute settlement, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala noted that there is a common desire among WTO Members to have the dispute settlement system work and function. The question is how. There is a common belief that the panel process has been working well, so that places the focus on the Appellate Body. To address the various issues that have been raised by the United States, the WTO has the work product of the Walker process (note: Amb. Walker (NZ) was a facilitator to the General Council in 2019 to see if he could work with Members to find a solution to issues raised by the U.S.). Some of the proposals made by Amb. Walker can be used to move the process forward. The U.S. is seeking to go back to what the existing Dispute Settlement Understanding requires — 90 days for decisions, not creating rights or obligations (“overreach”), Appellate Body members working on appeals after their terms have expired, etc. We should take them up one at a time and find solutions that work. Can Members agree that appeals should be resolved in 90 days? Very likely. Can Members agree that the Appellate Body is limited to reviewing issues of law and not reviewing fact finding by panels? Very likely.

Mr. Abdel-Hamid Mamdouh (Egypt):

Mr. Mamdouh in his prepared statement reviewed the challenge to the WTO from the imbalance resulting from growing importance of dispute settlement while the negotiating function has been reduced in effectiveness:

“In my view, over the past quarter of a century, the WTO has suffered from a chronic imbalance across all its vital functions. That is, dispute settlement, negotiation, and the transparency/deliberative functions

“In any legal system, there needs to be a balance between the ‘legislative’ and the ‘judicial’ functions. For the WTO, these are the negotiating and the dispute settlement functions. While dispute settlement gained strength due to the inherent automaticity of procedures, the negotiating function has broken down. This created an unsustainable imbalance.” (Page 3)

During the press conference, Mr. Mamdouh was asked about how to bring the Appellate Body back. My notes on his answer are as follows:

Asked what he would do to revive the Appellate Body, Mr. Mamdouh responded that he would build off of the work already done. Most logical and productive first step is to build on that work and see what else is needed. And there is a need to look deeper into causes which he believes are rooted in differences in legal and regulatory systems. Mr. Mamdouh has not heard any suggestions that rules within the Dispute Settlement Understanding need to be changed. He concluded by saying that the size of the problem needs to be put into perspective and one needs to remember that on this issue, the WTO Members are not starting from zero.

WITA had a webinar with Mr. Mamdouh on June 23. https://www.wita.org/event-videos/conversation-candidate-hamid-mamdouh/. There were no specific questions asked on dispute settlement, but Mr. Mamdouh provided some introductory thoughts on the genesis of the crisis in the WTO. He noted that the WTO has been suffering from a chronic imbalance between the negotiating function and the dispute settlement function.  He indicated that the negotiating function has underperformed miserably.  Dispute settlement system, being automatic adoption at the end of disputes absent a negative consensus has grown in importance and hence has created imbalance.  Mr. Mamdouh views that there is a critical need to reboot the negotiating function to help restore better balance.

Amb. Tudor Ulianovschi (Moldova):

Amb. Ulianovschi, in his prepared statement, had reform of the Appellate Body as a top priority for the incoming Director-General:

“Dispute Settlement

“The reform of the dispute settlement mechanism and particularly the reform of the Appellate Body will be one of the main priorities for the next Director General. This process needs to be open, inclusive and constructive. We need to find a way for all members to accept a two-step binding independent Dispute Settlement system.

“I believe that the issues and concerns were clarified by the members already and now they have to be addressed.

“I am aware of the on-going consultations on this important matter among the Members. In my opinion, there is a general common understanding on fundamentals of the DSU, which is already a good start.

“The least a DG can do is to facilitate discussions among Members to agree together on how to move forward and eventually agree on a roadmap and mechanisms – ‘agree on how to agree’ on this sensitive but crucial issue and devise a process of further engagement to reach an acceptable solution.”

During the press conference following his appearance before the General Council, Amb. Ulianovschi was asked several questions about the Appellate Body impasse. Below are my notes on Amb. Ulianovschi’s answers.

There were several questions on the Appellate Body including how Mr. Ulianovschi would reactivate the Appellate Body and whether reform of the dispute settlement system should be broader than getting the Appellate Body back functioning. Mr. Ulianovschi indicated that on the provisions of the Dispute Settlement Understanding, all Members agree on the provisions as written. With the application of the DSU by the AB, there are concerns raised by the U.S. and others. The Director-General can provide a process to help Member’s discuss. Solutions to the concerns raised need to be found, but the parameters of the solutions need to be found by members themselves. In his view, the Director-General’s role is to help Members identify how to move forward on the Appellate Body impasse with resolution by the next Ministerial Conference. On the question of breadth of action on the dispute settlement system, Mr. Ulianovschi stated that Members are not looking for a complete redrafting of the Dispute Settlement Understanding. What is needed is a targeted approach to address issues raised by certain members on the operation of the Appellate Body.

WITA held a webinar with Amb. Tudor Ulianovschi on August 26, 2020. https://www.wita.org/event-videos/conversation-with-tudor-ulianovschi/. Amb. Ulianovschi referenced the impasse on the Appellate Body (dispute settlement system) both in his opening statement at the webinar and in answer to a number of questions. My notes on his statements are provided below.

In his opening statement, Amb. Ulianovschi noted that as a member driven organization, the WTO needs Members to negotiate to move forward.  He believes that a diplomatically active Director-General can help the WTO move forward, and he can help address lack of trust which he believes is largely psychological primarily based on unfinished business but also on the dispute settlement impasse on the operation of the Appellate Body, Special and differential treatment and other issues.

Q:  How important is it to have a reform agenda, and how can you convince the major Members to agree on a common agenda?

A:    Amb. Ulianovschi stated that reform is absolutely necessary.  In his view, cosmetic reform is not sufficient, a fact made clear by major Members.  Amb. Ulianovschi believes that political experience and dialogue by the Director-General will be key to get those who have put forward proposals to get into a discussion that is inclusive and transparent.  There are a large number of issues that are affecting the environment at the WTO.  For example, the current situation between the U.S. and China is affecting the system.  Also the impasse on dispute settlement and the concerns raised by the United States and the EU position on an interim arbitration agreementwith MPIA.  He sees a positive signal that major players are putting forward proposals; this should be starting point for discussions.  He would invite those who have put forward proposals to start discussions.  The process will require political will, and members will need to agree on how to proceed).  Amb. Ulianovschi believes he can get Members to that point.  On dispute settlement, Members have the paper from Amb. Walker which can be used to move forward.  Will have to see how deep reforms will be.

Q:  If you are the next Director-General, what would be your priorities for the 2021 Ministerial Conference and how would you define success?

A:  In Amb. Ulianovschi’s view, the next Ministerial must show some results.  He believes the top priority would be completing the ongoing negotiations on fisheries subsidies, which is important to fulfill U.N. Sustainable Development Goal 14.6.  He believes that the Members are close to getting language agreed to.  Completing the fisheries subsidies agreement Is just the first step, but it is an important one.  On the current impasse on the Appellate Body (and hence the lack of a second-tier dispute settlement stage), Amb. Ulianovschi doesn’t see a clear cut resolution of the reform needed by the next Ministerial but rather hopes the Members will have a road map of how to proceed by the Ministerial. 

Q:  On dispute settlement, it is becoming quite clear that the divergences are growing between the Trump Administration and some of our trading partners.  Many Members have shared the view that there have been problems with the Appellate Body engaging in overreach in certain situations.  The recent Op Ed in the Wall Street Journal by USTR Lighthizer suggests that Amb. Lighthizer is looking to eliminate the Appellate Body and change the system so that panels’ role is limited to helping resove specific disputes between Members, more like commercial arbitration, without broader effect of the decisions.  Is it realistic to go back to a system without an Appellate Body?

A:  Amb. Ulianovschi responded that understand the U.S. concerns at the WTO on the Appellate Body both procedural (e.g., decisions within 90 days; Appellate Body members not involved in appeals after their four year term expires) and substantive (e.g., overreaching).  He recognizes that the U.S. concerns are shared by other members of the organization.  Amb. Ulianovschi believes that this is the moment to put forward different opinions on both problems and how to proceed, but all issues have to be negotiated.  The role of the Director-General is to put Members together to permit Members to present the details of their proposals.  In Amb. Ulianovschi’s view, the Recent Op Ed by Amb. Lighthizer is another idea put forward to find a solution to the ongoing problem at the WTO.  He has talked with all of the major Members on how to deal with the broader issue of Appellate Body reform.  The Director-General is there to encourage members to put forward proposals but also to use his/her good offices to encourage discussions.  Having said that, Amb. Ulianovschi noted that some Members have undertaken different initiatives under Rule 25 of the Dispute Settlement Understanding, such as MPIA, to provide a second-tier of review.  These initiatives are interim efforts.  Such actions don’t have to distract the Members from the main task of finding a common understanding on the purpose of the dispute settlement understanding or on a sustainable solution.  So the WTO Members have to identify the consensual solution and how we can ensure a compliance mechanism so that the system works as intended and agreed to.  This should be a top priority of the next Director-General.

H.E. Yoo Myung-hee (Republic of Korea):

In her prepared statement, Minister Yoo includes one paragraph on the Appellate Body impasse:

“Another urgent, pressing issue is restoring the dispute settlement system. We need a stable and fully-functioning dispute settlement system which would effectively contribute to the prompt and satisfactory resolution of the disputes. I will act as an honest broker to facilitate constructive discussions to find an effective and permanent solution.”

During the press conference, Minister Yoo was asked two questions about dispute settlement, one dealing with resolving the impasse on the Appellate Body and the other on the Multi-Party Interim Arbitration Agreement. My notes of Minister Yoo’s responses to these questions follows:

On the issue of The Appellate Bidy impasse, Minister Yoo was asked how she would solve the impasse. She indicated that Members have very divergent views on the role of the Appellate Body. All members understand the need for a two-tier dispute settlement system. If selected as the next Director-General, Minister Yoo would accelerate members’ consultations to resolve the issue.

On the interim arbitration mechanism adopted by the EU, China and about 20 other Members, Korea is not a party. Does Minister Yoo have any concerns that the interim arrangement (MPIA) might become permanent? Minister Yoo responded that the MPIA was being used by some Members to overcome the current vacuum with the Appellate Body being shut down. The key for the WTO is to focus on finding a permanent solution, and she would do that if selected as the next Director-General.

WITA had a webinar with H.E. Yoo scheduled on August 11,https://www.wita.org/event-videos/candidate-h-e-yoo-myung-hee/. My summary of Minister Yoo’s comments on dispute settlement follow.

from her opening comments: Restoring dispute settlement system is an urgent need.

Questions asked on Dispute settlement – do you share assessment of US and others that there have been problems of overreach by AB?  Secondly, there are procedural flaws that need to be addressed?  What can a DG do about it?

Minister Yoo’s response: Clearing impasse on the Appellate Body is a top priority.  The WTO needs a prompt resolution to restore the two-tier dispute settlement system.  There are divergent views of the proper role of the Appellate Body.  Some countries, like the United States, have said the Appellate Body has gone too far — overreaching by creating or diminishing rights and obligations of Members.  However, some members say that the Appellate Body has been working to clarify of the provisions of Agreements to provide stability to the multilateral trading system.  So there are competing views of what the role of the Appellate Body is supposed to be.  The Walker process has put forward certain ideas.  Still the gap is very wide between the two views.  If we look at three pillars of WTO (negotiations, notifications, dispute settlement), over the first 25 years of the WTO, there have been no major agreements from negotiations other than Trade Facilitiation Agreement. This failure of the negotiating function to work has put much strain on the dispute settlement system.  Members are resorting to dispute settlement to address issues not handled by negotiations.  So, lacking periodic updates through negotiations, it is easy for the Appellate Body to engage in creating obligations to fill gaps.  So Minister Yoo agrees to some extent with US (and others) about of overreach.  The question for the WTO and the incoming Director-General is how to move forward to find solutions acceptable to all.  There have been very divergent views within the WTO for a long time.  If Minister Yoo becomes the Director-General, she would try to increase communication with missions in Geneva and ministers in capital.  Need some political involvement to resolve the impasse.  Minister Yoo would also look at some ideas floated by academia as well to see if those views might provide different approaches that would be of interest of Members.  Several examples would include strengthening qualifications of AB members and what role of Appellate Body Secretariat should be, etc.  I would encourage Members to engage in open, transparent and inclusive discussions on these issues. 

Minister Yoo wanted to highlight importance of revitalizing negotiating function. If there is a more active negotiating functions, Members would be able to address needs to update and clarify agreements which should be done by Members and not the dispute settlment system.

H.E. Amina C. Mohamed (Kenya):

Minister Mohamed in her prepared statement reviewed the need for a functioning dispute settlement system:

“The WTO’s dispute settlement function is key to the credibility and effectiveness of the rules. We need to find a way through its problems to make it once again an instrument that all Members can use with confidence.”

During the press conference, Minister Mohamed was asked about the Appellate Body impasse. My notes on her response are as follows:

On the issue of how to remove the impasse on the Appellate Body, Minister Mohamed indicated that Members need to consult and negotiate. The WTO needs members to find solutions to permit the second-tier of dispute settlement to be restored. A Director-General DG can offer technical assistance and process to help Members find the solutions.

WITA had a webinar with H.E. Mohamed on August 6. https://www.wita.org/event-videos/ambassador-amina-mohamed/. Minister Mohamed had a number of comments about the Appellate Body impasse.

Restoring the Appellate Body is an important priority for the incoming Director-General.

The WTO dispute settlement process is key to the credibility and effectiveness of the WTO.  Members have been working for some time on finding solutions.  Minister Mohamed takes seriously US concerns about the operation of the Appellate Body. If she becomes Director-General, she will use her skills at building consensus to help Members find solutions.  Finding solutions is important so that the WTO Members can get back to a dispute settlement system that all can use.

Minister Mohamed was Chair of the Dispute Settlement Body in 2004.  She made sure that there was continuous flow of information from the Dispute Settlement Body to the Appellate Body.  She had lunch with the Appellate Body quarterly.  Issues she had been raising back in 2004 as of concern to Members remain unresolved today. 

WTO Members designed a system that was complete from negotiations to dispute settlement.  In Minister Mohamed’s view the system was designed really well.  Now there is a gap in the system with the inoperability of the Appellate Body.  The WTO needs to fill the gap quickly. Absent a resolution, some Members will comie up with an interim system (MPIA).  Thus, Minister Mohamed believes the WTO needs to deal with the issues raised by the United States urgently.  She agrees with some of the issues raised by the U.S.  Many of those same concerns were around in 2004 when she chaired the Dispute Settlement Body.  In her quarterly meetings with the Appellate Body, Minister Mohamed told the Appellate Body members that they had a specific mandate laid out by Members in the Dispute Settlement Understanding.  It was not the role of the Appellate Body to add to or diminish the mandate.  Minister Mohamed believes that Members need to see where the Appellate Body veered off of the mandate.  She believes that the new Director-General should look at te Walker process (note: Amb. Walker (NZ), as facilitator to the General Council in 2019 had met with Members to see if solutions to the U.S. concerns could be found) and see how to move forward.  But it is critical for the WTO to resolve the issues raised by the U.S. to permit the Appellate Body to resume.

H.E. Mohammad Mazaid Al-Tuwaijri (Saudi Arabia):

In his prepared statement, Minister Al-Tuwaijri referenced the challenges in the dispute settlement system but did not identify any specific approach to addressing Appellate Body reform if selected as the next Director-General other than his overall approach reviewed in the statement on all issues. Several quotes from his prepared statement follow:

“As you all know, the WTO has three main functions for monitoring trade issues, settling disputes, and negotiations, which include improvements to existing rules, new rules and market access.”

“We also need to recognize the consequences for the WTO of over-performance in litigation, while neglecting the negotiating and monitoring functions. A system out of balance cannot move forward.”

During the press conference, Minister Al-Tuwaijri was asked what his plan was to address U.S. concerns with the Appellate Body. My notes on his response are provided below.

On the Appellate Body, what is your plan to addressing U.S. concerns and do you plan to get it back functioning? Minister Al-Tuwaijri’s approach is the same as reviewed elsewhere. Determine what is the root cause of AB not functioning. He believes it is because negotiations are not functioning well. Therefore, he wants to get the negotiating process to improve and to gain data to improve the system. For example, he believes it is important to be able to quantify the effect of delay of even one month in resolution of disputes.

WITA did a webinar with Minister Al-Tuwaijri on August 5. https://www.wita.org/event-videos/director-general-candidate-he-mohammed-al-tuwaijri/.

Minister Al-Tuwaijri provided some comments in his opening statement and responded to a question on the dispute settlement system.

The structure of the organization is not functioning – negotiations, dispute settlement, notifications.  Key is what type of change is needed to help organization be fit for the 21st century.

Minister Al-Tuwaijri believes the correct analysis for any issue is: what is the problem, what needs to be done, consult with the Members for possible solutions.

Does Dispute Settlement reform need to be taken up as a condition precedent to broader WTO reform?

In Minister Al-Tuwaijri’s view, the role the Director-General can play is resolving the impasse on the Appellate Body is somewhat limited. Can the Director-General help with a procedural question?  Yes. Is there an interpretation issue that the Director-General may be able to assist in resolving?  Yes.  In 2019, the General Council had Amb. Walker, acting as a facilitator, work with Members to see if solutions could be found to the issues raised by the U.S. So that work product is available.  The EU has also pursued a multi-party interim arbitration agreement to help at least some Members handle a second stage dispute process while the Appellate Body is not functioning.  Despite these efforts, there is the question why resolution of the impasse is not happening.  Minister Al-Tuwaijri believes that the answer goes back to his core point, the WTO must fix its negotiating function.  If Members want to change the rules on the operation of the Appellate Body, that is for the Members to decide.  As Director-General, Minister Al-Tuwaijri would encourage Members to think differently about the impasse and the options for finding solutions.

The Rt Hon Dr. Liam Fox MP (United Kingdom):

Dr. Fox’s prepared statement talked about many topics, including WTO reform, but did not speak specifically about the impasse on the Appellate Body or needed reforms to permit reactivating the second stage of dispute settlement.

During the press conference, Dr. Fox was asked about how he would address U.S. concerns with the WTO. My notes on his response are provided below:

A question was asked of how Dr. Fox would address the broad concerns of U.S. with the WTO. Dr. Fox noted that the U.S. has some very specific concerns with the WTO, particularly with regards to the Appellate Body. Dr. Fox stated that the WTO has the Appellate Body because countries felt panels in GATT disputes went too wide. The Appellate Body was set up with a limited mandate. He is aware that there are different views of the role of Appellate Body and whether it has engaged in mission creep or handled incomplete texts by filling them out. If WTO Members are able to get back to a more narrow definition of the function of the Appellate Body, there may be some concept of precedent being set. Dr. Fox asks the question, does everyone want the AB to be functioning properly or not. If not, the multilateral trading system is under threat as obligations can’t be enforced. Believe there is room for compromise.

WITA had a webinar with Dr. Fox on July 30, 2020. https://www.wita.org/event-videos/conversation-with-dr-liam-fox/. His comments on dispute settlement from the webinar are summarized below.

A rules-based system must have a functioning dispute settlement system, a top priority for the incoming Director-General.  To have a rules-based system without a functioning dispute settlement system is nonsensical.  For many countries, the dispute settlement system is the value added that membership in the WTO brings.

All members need to focus on adhering to the rules that they have already agreed to.  The WTO needs an effective dispute settlement system for that.  The WTO needs all Members to adhere to all rules they have signed up for and not decide that some rules don’t apply to them.

Questions asked of Dr. Fox: There have been some problems with the Appellate Body overreaching.  Do you agree we need a more realistic approach by Appellate Body where there is ambiguous language in an agreement?  How would you resolve the impasse on the Appellate Body?

Resolution of the Appellate Body impasse is the most urgent task facing the incoming Director-General.  Dispute Settlement is the value-added to many Members of joining the WTO.  Many members view the Appellate Body as having gone beyond the Dispute Settlement Understanding.  Moreover, the excessive length of time to render an appeal decision undermines the system by itself — Members violating their obligations can get a three-year free ride.  The WTO needs to tighten up the parameters and limit the areas that the Appellate Body examines.  While the Appellate Body can’t create binding precedent, the need for consistency supports the ability to review how issues have been handled in other cases.  Thus, looking at prior disputes makes sense, but the Appellate Body can’t create law through the process.

On any negotiation there are technical, political and timing issues. WTO Members are not going to see any concessions from the U.S. before the presidential election.  It may be possible for the U.S. to make compromises, but the timing of major political events affects the ability to do so.    

Conclusion

One of the major current challenges for the WTO and its Members is finding solutions to the impasse on the Appellate Body. The eight candidates for the Director-General post have all expressed views on the importance of resolving the issue and where in the hierarchy of issues to be addressed by an incoming Director-General the impasse is found. Presumably, most Members will be carefully considering each candidate’s views and suggested approach on all key issues, including resolving the Appellate Body impasse.

The fundamental disconnect between the EU (which has been reluctant to recognize any deviation from the Dispute Settlement Understanding by the Appellate Body) and the United States (which has focused on the limited role of the Appellate Body as laid out in the Dispute Settlement Understanding) remains. The role of honest broker and consensus builder that the incoming Director-General will assume later this year will be tested by the gulf in positions of two of the WTO’s major Members.

The eight candidates for WTO Director-General meet the General Council – recap of prepared statements and press conferences

· July 19, 2020 · Selection of WTO Director-General · , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , · No Comments

On Friday, July 17th, the General Council of the World Trade Organization concluded three days of meetings with the eight candidates for the post of Director-General. With the current Director-General, Roberto Azevedo, stepping down on August 31st, the WTO is engaged in a somewhat truncated process for selecting a new Director-General, though it is likely that the selection will not conclude until early November of this year.

Each candidate had ninety minutes with the General Council and then were given a press conference for thirty minutes. At the press conference, the candidate would provide a short opening statement and then answer questions from journalists. The order of candidates meeting with the General Council followed the order of receipt of the candidate’s nomination from their government. Thus, Dr. Jesus Seade Kuri (Mexico), Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (Nigeria) and Mr. Abdel-Hamid Mamdouh (Egypt), the first three nominations received by the WTO, met with the General Council on July 15. On July 16, the General Council met with Mr. Tudor Ulianovschi (Rep. of Moldova), H.E. Yoo Myung-hee (Rep. of Korea) and Amb. Amina C. Mohamed (Rep. of Kenya). On July 17, the General Council held meetings with H.E. Mohammad Al-Tuwaijri (Saudi Arabia) and Dr. Liam Fox (United Kingdom). The week also provided candidates with the opportunity to meet with individual WTO Members or groups of WTO Members based on availability, etc.

While the meetings with the General Council are simply an early part of the two month outreach by candidates to Members to become better known, the meetings are nonetheless important as they provide WTO Members the opportunity to hear from and to ask questions of each candidate under comparable circumstances. While the minutes of the General Council meetings will be generated by the WTO Secretariat in the coming months and made public some time after that, the General Council meetings are not open to the public. Hence the material available to evaluate the three days of meetings is limited to prepared statements made to the General Council and the press conferences for each candidate held after the candidate had met with the General Council. Those materials can be accessed from the WTO website. See Candidates for DG selection process 2020, https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/dg_e/dgsel20_e/dgsel20_e.htm (shows biography, statement to General Council, photo gallery and video press conference for each candidate); WTO members meet the candidates for Director-General, https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news20_e/dgsel_17jul20_e.htm.

What follows are first my summary impressions from the public information of the candidates. Those are followed by my summaries of each candidate’s presentation and answers to questions.

Summary Impressions of the Candidates

In the challenging environment that confronts the world at the present time, one has to marvel that eight individuals were willing to be put forward by their governments to pursue heading the World Trade Organization. Despite some successes in its first twenty-five years, the WTO is viewed as being severely challenged. Its negotiating function, historically the most important function of the GATT and presumed to be critical in the WTO, has been at least seriously challenged, unable to deliver on many of the subjects that have been considered. This has led the WTO rules to be both outdated and not dealing with current issues of great importance. The dispute settlement system has seen the shutdown of the second-tier review (the Appellate Body) as a variety of longstanding concerns of the United States have not been addressed leading the U.S. to block appointing new members of the Appellate Body. Standing Committees that monitor notifications and discuss topics within the Committee’s jurisdiction have been less robust than historically was the case. Notifications are problematic for many Members in terms of completeness and timeliness of notifications. The lack of successful negotiations has raised concerns on obligations of members as economic development changes the relative ability of Members to contribute. Also the growth of Members operating on economic systems different than market economy models has created challenges as to practices that may not be addressed by WTO rules. And the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in many export restraints to address concerns about adequacy of medical supplies or agricultural goods.

So it is encouraging that there are eight individuals willing to be considered to head the WTO going forward in such circumstances.

Each candidate has different backgrounds and experiences which may appeal to some WTO Members but not others. For example, Minister Mohammmad Al-Tuwaijri has an extensive business background as well as four years in a Minister position for Saudi Arabia and has focused on his management experience and his desire to develop goals and performance metrics to measure progress if selected the next Director-General.

That is a very different profile than that of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of Nigeria. While Dr. Okonjo-Iweala has some private sector experience, she is a development economist with deep experience at the World Bank and as Finance Minister for Nigeria who focuses on her political experience, ability to work with various multilateral and UN organizations to achieve coordinated actions for developing and least-developed countries and being able to bring “fresh eyes” to the problems of the WTO. She has a reputation as a reformer.

A number of the candidates have depth of GATT/WTO experience and/or trade ministry work. Dr. Jesus Seade Kuri was Mexico’s Ambassador to the GATT, went inside the GATT Secretariat to help conclude the Uruguay Round and was one of the first Deputy Directors-General of the WTO and has recent experiences with the Mexican government concluding the USMCA talks with the United States and Canada. His presentation had a very aggressive and active agenda presented with approaches on the Appellate Body and other issues that indicate he would be active as a Director-General in helping Members find solutions through his understanding of the Agreements, their history, and an ability to devise possible alternative approaches to resolve impasses. He is obviously fluent in all three official languages which is an aid in dealing with senior Mission officials and officials in capitals for many countries.

Mr. Abdel-Hamid Mamdouh similarly has very long experience at the GATT and WTO, first as a negotiator for Egypt and then as part of the WTO Secretariat where he served as Director of Services and Investment. He has significant technical expertise and views himself as having a history of being a trusted advisor to all WTO Members which is different from others who have more government specific experience. While he hasn’t filled senior political positions in the Egyptian government, he notes that political leadership, which is important for the Director-General position, is not the same as ministerial leadership experience.

Minister Amina C. Mohamed of Kenya touted her extensive experience both at the WTO where she was Ambassador for Kenya to the WTO including chairing the three major bodies (General Council, Dispute Settlement Body and Trade Policy Review Body) and her role as Foreign Affairs and International Trade Minister which included her chairing the 10th WTO Ministerial in Nairobi and achieving a series of breakthroughs on negotiations including an amendment to the TRIPS Agreement, expansion of the Information Technology Agreement and delivering an agreement on agriculture export subsidies to highlight her ability to build consensus should she be selected as the next Director-General.

Mr. Tudor Ulianovschi from Moldova similarly had served both as his country’s Ambassador to the WTO and Minister of Foreign Affairs. He presented himself as having political leadership experience and an understanding of current WTO challenges and having interfaced with governments around the world. As Moldova is neutral on many issues before major trading partners, Mr. Ulianovschi views he can be the honest broker and viewed as such by Members. He can handle the political and technical elements of the job and references his sixteen years of experience with Moldova’s government.

H.E. Yoo Myung-hee of Korea has spent twenty-five years in international trade for her government and is the first female Minister for Trade. While she has not served in Geneva in her country’s mission, she has engaged extensively in trade negotiations with countries at all levels of economic development and knows what is needed to conclude negotiations. The fact that she has experienced Korea’s change in economic status over the years helps her understand issues and needs of WTO Members at different economic levels of development.

Finally, Dr. Liam Fox of the United Kingdom believes the next Director-General needs to have political skills, not be a technocrat. He has been in the UK Parliament for several decades and has served in two different administrations (Secretary of State for Defence; Secretary of State for Trade). While he hasn’t served at the WTO, he is a strong supporter of free trade. He believes the WTO needs to recommit to the fundamental principles of most favoured nation, national treatment and transparency of commitment as part of the next Ministerial Conference in 2021. He also cautions that now is not the time for an incoming Director-General to overcommit on anticipated results.

There are factors that may influence some Members — geographical diversity, gender of candidate, whether the candidate is from a developed or developing country. In my last post, I provided a chart that graphed these and some other factors. See WTO Director-General selection process – this week candidates meet WTO Members in a General Council Meeting, https://currentthoughtsontrade.com/2020/07/14/wto-director-general-selection-process-the-week-candidates-meet-wto-members-in-a-general-council-meeting/.

On geographical diversity, there has never been a Director-General from an African country (three candidates – Nigeria, Egypt and Kenya), from an Arab country (Saudi Arabia, Egypt), from North America (Mexico).

On gender, there has never been a Director-General who was female. There are three candidates who are female in this selection process (Nigeria, Korea, Kenya).

On developed vs. developing country, there are two countries that are “developed” at the WTO (United Kingdom, Moldova). In my prior chart, Moldova had been listed as developing, flowing from the fact that in their trade policy review, it was indicated that Moldova is eligible for generalized system of preference benefits from a number of countries (GSP is intended to benefit developing countries). See Trade Policy Review, Report by the Secretariat, Republic of Moldova, WT/TPR/S/323 (14 September 2015) at 31, para. 3.24, https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/tpr_e/s323_e.pdf. Saudi Arabia was included in the chart as a developing country, despite being a high income country in the World Bank’s terminology, because the Saudi Arabia trade policy review indicates Saudi Arabia is a member of the Informal Group of Developing Countries. See Trade Policy Review, Report by the Secretariat, The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, WT/TPR/S/333 (29 Feb. 2016) at 22, para. 2.20, https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/tpr_e/s333_e.pdf.

If WTO Members are looking for positions of candidates on particular issues, candidates were typically careful not to go in one direction or another where there are known differences in the position of Members. For example, on the question of the Appellate Body reform, candidates recognized the need to address both the concerns of the United States and the concerns of other Members to have the WTO Appellate Body reinstated in their prepared statements and were certainly asked questions both by the General Council and during the press conferences. Some, like Dr. Jesus Seade, had some broader ideas on how to resolve the Appellate Body issue without indicating what the resolution would look like. Others like Mr. Abdel-Hamid Mamdouh believed it would be possible to move forward from the work already done. Some like Dr. Liam Fox suggested that without resolution there was no dispute settlement, which is a sentiment that at least the United States would disagree with. Several were asked about the interim arrangement entered into by the EU, China, Canada and some 19 others. All who addressed the issue accepted the arrangement as interim only and not intended to replace the Appellate Body and focused on obtaining a solution to the impasse on the Appellate Body.

Similarly, many candidates were asked about the question of classification of countries as developing for special and differential treatment. Minister Yoo of Korea noted that Korea had decided that its economic development permitted it to accept higher levels of commitments and thought that was useful for countries who felt they could do so. But she recognized that it was a sensitive issue on which there was no consensus. Dr. Seade felt a more productive approach to the issue would be to look at whether any given country needed special and differential treatment on a product or sector basis in new agreements versus tackling what he viewed was a theological issue – country classification. Others deferred to what Members thought or wanted to pursue.

While all candidates talked extensively about reform, none can fairly be said to have embraced the U.S. call for broad-ranging reform of the existing organization and agreements. Nor did any candidate publicly indicate that the WTO did not address many of the practices of China which operates under a different economic system than most of WTO members, another issue viewed as important by USTR Lighthizer for candidates to recognize.

To sum up, the candidates are in the early days of their outreach to get better known by Members. The appearances before the General Council and the press conferences afterward provide a better understanding of their visions for the WTO and what the candidates believe they bring to the table. The next 51 days til September 8 will undoubtedly be an exhausting time for each candidate as outreach continues around the world. We wish all of the candidates success in their outreach efforts these next fifty-one days.

The immediate task for the General Council will be selecting an acting Director-General from the four existing Deputy Directors-General. It is not clear if this will be accomplished at this week’s General Council meeting on July 22 and 23, or if this week’s meeting will simply represent the start of the process.

What follows are summaries of prepared statements and of the press conferences held July 15-17, 2020

Dr. Jesus Seade Kuri (Mexico)

Dr. Seade was the first candidate nominated and so was the first before the General Council and the first to have a press conference after the meeting with the General Council. His statement to the General Council was the only one presented in all three of the official languages of the WTO with the first part in Spanish, the middle section in French and the last part in English.

Dr. Seade reviews his unique history with the GATT and WTO, having been Mexico’s Ambassador to the GATT during the Uruguay Round, part of the GATT Secretariat during the period that Peter Sutherland was Director-General working to conclude the Uruguay Round, and his role as one of the first Deputy Directors-General of the WTO when the WTO launched in 1995. The GATT and WTO have accomplished a lot in terms of expanding global trade and economic development over roughly three quarters of a century. The WTO provided needed stability during the 2008 financial crisis and is continuing to do so now during the COVID-19 pandemic. And the WTO has had some recent successes in terms of completing the trade facilitation agreement and agreeing to the elimination of agricultural export subsidies by some countries. Nonetheless, the WTO’s performance has not lived up to the initial high expectations of Members.

The WTO has the twin problems of limited results from negotiations and the paralysis of the Appellate Body. These problems are being exacerbated by the enormous negative effects of COVID-19 on trade. Key to restoring the role of the organization is to restore the negotiating function, restore a two stage dispute settlement system and start discussions to make the WTO more efficient, transparent and inclusive. On negotiations, the WTO needs to address issues currently being addressed, issues relevant to 21st century trade, and traditional issues where progress has not been made.

Dr. Seade presented a three-stage program for action:

  1. In the first 100 days, work with Members to (a) complete a fisheries subsidies agreement, (b) restore the Appellate Body, (c) work to reverse negative views of WTO and its ability to fulfill its mandate and (d) work with Members on the COVID-19 crisis both to increase transparency and address trade restrictions introduced.
  2. By the Ministerial Conference to be held in 2021, help Members achieve results (a) in joint initiatives and (b) on issues that will make WTO more transparent and effective, and establish a work program on issues where negotiations have been suspended.
  3. In the medium and longer term, work with Members to identify weaknesses in the organization and pursue modifications to strengthen the organization, take up traditional priority issues on the sustainable development agenda. Also ensure a high quality and effective Secretariat. Finally, address issues important to society, including those related to the environment, gender, MSMEs, etc.

Dr. Seade indicated that he possesses not only vision, leadership and political capacity but also an understanding of the trade agreements and the sensitivities behind the agreements. These are qualities he believes the next Director-General will need.

During the press conference, Dr. Seade provided a short opening statement which basically reviewed his special role in the creation of the WTO and his other positions. He noted that trade is very transformative for countries to help development and lift people out of poverty. He then reviewed the serious crisis at the WTO and why he has been put forward as a candidate.

Dr. Seade was asked many questions some of which sought information that is reflected in his prepared statement. Dr. Seade was asked why Members should choose him, how he would help Members address the Appellate Body impasse, what did he think of the interim arbitration arrangement entered into by a number of Members while the Appellate Body is not functioning, what is the most pressing challenge at the WTO, which Members were supporting his candidacy, what will the effect of the U.S. election be on the Director-General selection process and what Dr. Seade thinks of the issue of classification of Members as developed or developing. He was also asked questions about regional diversity and gender for the next Director-General noting Mexico is part of Latin America, the area where the current Director-General is also from, versus candidates from Africa or the Middle East which have never had a Director-General. Similarly, the GATT and WTO have had Directors-General all of whom have been male. The current field of eight candidates includes three women; isn’t it time for a woman to be Director-General?

Dr. Seade reviewed the capabilities he believes the next Director-General needs. While he wouldn’t make a comparison to other candidates, he felt that he had the capabilities in fact needed. His job as Director-General would be to come up with alternative ideas to help Members find solutions. He has that ability.

On the question of the Appellate Body impasse, Dr. Seade noted that none of the Members were denouncing any provision within the Dispute Settlement Understanding. Rather concerns had been voiced on how DSU provisions had been applied. Dr. Seade believes that what is missing is the way to operationalize the role of the Dispute Settlement Body (all WTO Members sitting as the DSB) which is organizationally above the Appellate Body but for which there are currently no procedures for communications from the DSB to the Appellate Body to address issues generally (vs. in specific disputes). Such procedures were needed. He also had other ideas for how to resolve the impasse that he was interested in reviewing with Members to see if there could be movement. On the question of the interim arbitration arrangement, Dr. Seade thought a temporary arrangement made sense as it provided Members a second stage to dispute settlement as provided in the DSU. Key is finding a solution to the impasse so the two-tier dispute settlement system is restored for all.

On the question of the major problem with the WTO, Dr. Seade identified two problems — the inability to negotiate and dispute settlement, although dispute settlement largely flows from the inability to negotiate. Because the nature of the world has changed so profoundly over the years, there are new issues and new actors. Where Members can’t negotiate new issues, there is enormous pressure put on the dispute settlement system to find solutions. The inability to negotiate is spurred on by an enormous lack of trust between Members. The issue of lack of trust needs to be addressed.

On the issue of support, he noted that obviously many Members want to meet all candidates as they consider who they will support. He has done extensive outreach already to many Members and believes those outreach efforts have generally been well received. While he has some Members who have indicated they will support his candidacy (about a half dozen), only two are public — Argentina and Bolivia. He did not view it as appropriate to mention other Members where support was not public. He was hopeful of obtaining support from all parts of the world including in North America.

On the question of the effect of the U.S. Presidential election in November on the Director-General selection process, Dr. Seade said that both parties in the United States have been critical of the WTO in various respects. So regardless of the election outcome, the WTO will need to address U.S. concerns. The key is to make the Director-General selection as soon as possible. This is because of the need to get working ahead of the Ministerial Conference which will be next year, but there is pent-up demand on issues since the last Ministerial was four years ago. While the schedule for the selection of the next Director-General could run to early November, he hopes it will be handled more quickly by Members.

On the question of developed vs. developing country, Dr. Seade looks at it from the perspective of special and differential treatment. On the one hand the world keeps changing, so it’s reasonable to ask what a Member can do. The idea of changing classification of countries from developing to developed will take a very long time and so is probably the wrong approach. The question should be what contribution can a particular member make, which may be different in different industries.

On the questions of geographical diversity and gender, Dr. Seade reviewed that Members will be making the selection. He believes the correct course is for Members to pick the individual best qualified for this particular time. He believes that he is that person.

Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala (Nigeria)

Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala in her prepared statement includes sincere condolences for all who have lost a family member from COVID-19 in French. Later in her statement, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala includes a phrase from her native igbo language, and she gives thank yous in six languages. The main part of her statement is in English. Her statement reviews her record at the World Bank, her time as Finance Minister in Nigeria and her role as Chair of Gavi to stress her ability to achieve reform and to work with other multilateral organizations and her focus on the needs of development and the role trade plays in development.

Looking at the challenges confronting the WTO, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala flags a negotiating function that is underperforming “at a time when its rule book would greatly benefit from an update to 21st century issues such as e-commerce and the digital economy, the green and circular economies. Issues of women and trade and Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) are import to ensure greater inclusion.” (pages 2-3). Other challenges include improving transparency and notifications, improving the functioning of the regular WTO bodies and strengthening the Secretariat. There are important differences on issues such as SOEs and agricultural subsidies amongst Members and increased trade tensions.

These problems are exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis which have resulted in export restraints by some and stimulus packages which may “undermine WTO commitments by distorting production and trade.” (page 4).

Dr. Okonjo-Iweala reviewed why she believes she is the person to be the next Director-General:

  1. She is a strong believer in the role of trade and of the multilateral trading system to bring shared prosperity. She brings a “fresh pair of eyes to the WTO’s challenges.”
  2. Need to build trust. Not a question of technical expertise but rather political will/solutions.
  3. She has a proven track record in carrying out successful reforms which is what will be needed at the WTO going forward.

After reviewing the range of pending issues before the WTO that need to be completed or addressed, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala reviews the need to work closely with other multilateral organizations and the UN and her ability to improve cooperation with these other entities.

“The rules-based MTS is a public good that underpins peace, security, stability and a chance for prosperity in the world. Every effort should therefore be made to safeguard, improve and renew it to enable it effectively address the challenges of the 21st century.” (Page 11)

During the press conference, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala provided her short statement and then received a large number of questions. Her short statement was that trade is important for the 21st century, for prosperity, resilience and growth. The WTO is at the center of global trade.

She was asked about whether three candidates from Africa hurt her chances to be selected, what she views as the role of the Director-General, how she views the question of fair trade particularly between north and south, what she believes is achievable in terms of deliverables by the next WTO Ministerial Conference in 2021, what she would say to the U.S. President on why the U.S. should stay in the WTO, what the WTO can do to ensure that small and micro-businesses survive the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, what her selection as the next Director-General would mean for women in Nigeria, if selected the next Director-General what would she do to ensure availability of medical supplies to all countries, and whether her perceived lack of a trade background was a handicap in the competition to become the next Director-General.

Her response on the question about multiple candidates from Africa was that Dr. Okonjo-Iweala viewed that it was a positive that there were three qualified candidates from Africa and not a problem. It is up to the Members to select from all of the candidates, a process which should focus on who is the best candidate. If from Africa, great.

On the question of the role of the Director-General, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala views the role to be working with Members to help them reach consensus. It is important that starting with the next Ministerial, the WTO show movement to achieve results.

On the question of fair trade, particularly between north and south, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala noted that the WTO’s role is to support all members to take advantage of fair and open trade. Where the South is getting fewer benefits from global trade, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala would use the instruments available to the WTO Director-General (e.g., Aid for Trade, working with other multilateral organizations) to get resources to South Members to improve their position in international trade.

On the question of what is achievable by the next Ministerial in 2021 and whether it is best to go after issues one at a time or in a larger grouping, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala indicated that she hoped the WTO Membership would make a decision soon on who should be Director-General so whoever is selected has more time before the next Ministerial. But even if a decision is not made until November 2020, there are some areas that could be ready by the next Ministerial. For example, a fisheries subsidies agreement should be achievable. There was a lot of discussion in the General Council on trust and building trust to move negotiations along. Trust is obviously an important issue. So the WTO may need to sequence issues to build trust by achieving a win or two. Once there are some successes, it should be possible to handle more issues in parallel.

On the question of why the U.S. should stay in the WTO, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala would communicate that the WTO delivers for all Members. The GATT and WTO have provided shared prosperity which has lifted millions out of poverty. Where the trading system is not working, Members need to fix the problems. Peace, security and stability are needed now just as they have been over the last decades. These are what the WTO rules-based system provides. If we didn’t have the WTO, we would need to invent it.

On the question of MSMEs, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala noted that they are very important globally but are being harmed by COVID-19 fallout. How to ensure MSMEs survive and get such entities better included in the global trading system is a matter of great interest to Dr. Okonjo-Iweala. There is a great need to facilitate provision of additional resources to help these entities. Dr. Okonjo-Iweala would work with other multilateral organizations to help facilitate assistance.

On the question of what will her getting selected Director-General of the WTO would mean for women in Nigeria, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala noted that women not just in Nigeria but around the world are ready for greater roles. But Dr. Okonjo-Iweala reiterated that selection of the WTO Director-General should be based on merit–if a woman, great; if from Africa, great.

On the question of what she would do as Director-General to ensure smooth trade of medical goods including therapeutics and vaccines, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala indicated that she would use the knowledge she has from the chair of GAVI and working with other groups and organizations to ensure that the WTO did its part to ensure equitable and afforadable access to any vaccines developed to address COVID-19. There should be no barriers to access to the medicines/vaccines while honoring intellectual property rights. It is critical that everyone have access to lifesaving medicines at the same time and at affordable prices.

On the question of whether the consensus rule at the WTO should be gotten rid of to overcome gridlock, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala responded that part of the strength of WTO is that agreements are reached by consensus. Where all sovereign states agree to a text, they are more likely to implement the provisions. The real question is how to make consensus better. In Dr. Okonjo-Iweala’s view, the underlying problem with the current consensus system is the lack of trust among the Members. Thus, there is an urgent need to rebuild trust. To rebuild trust, the WTO needs confidence building measures, i.e., obtaining wins in achieving new agreements. That will show that consensus can and does work.

The question on what Dr. Okonjo-Iweala would do as Director-General to see that an agreement on e-commerce was pursued was answered by noting that there was extensive work being done plurilaterally by many Members as one of a number of joint statement initiatives. Dr. Okonjo-Iweala agrees that an agreement on e-commerce is very important, but she notes that there is a digital divide where many poorer countries don’t have the infrastructure to take advantage of e-commerce. The WTO, working with other multilateral organizations, needs to see that resources are put together to help countries address the digital divide. Once the digital divide is addressed, all Members should want to and be able to participate in the e-commerce negotiations, so that the agreement becomes a multilateral one.

On the question of whether her career in finance is a handicap for a trade position, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala disagrees with the premise as her career has always involved trade as a development economist and also as finance minister where Customs was part of her responsibilities.

Abdel-Hamid Mamdouh (Egypt)

Mr. Abdel-Hamid Mamdouh is the one candidate with extensive WTO Secretariat experience (27 years), junior negotiating experience for Egypt during the Uruguay Round, but no Minister or Ambassador experience on his biography. His prepared statement concurs that the WTO needs reform, an updated rulebook for the 21st century and a Director-General with political leadership though he indicates political leadership doesn’t require or mean ministerial leadership. That said, Mr. Mamdouh indicates that a core problem is that the consensus or common purpose of the WTO has faded for many and to get that common purpose back, the WTO needs a different type of leadership, one that he is positioned to provide.

“In my view, over the past quarter of a century, the WTO has suffered from a chronic imbalance across all its vital functions. That is, dispute settlement, negotiation, and the transparency/deliberative functions

“In any legal system, there needs to be a balance between the ‘legislative’ and the ‘judicial’ functions. For the WTO, these are the negotiating and the dispute settlement functions. While dispute settlement gained strength due to the inherent automaticity of procedures, the negotiating function has broken down. This created an unsustainable imbalance.” (Page 3)

As international trade has evolved, the rules of trade have not done so which has added to imbalance through use of dispute settlement to address matters where no rules exist. Similarly, where transparency and notifications are not robust, Members don’t have the necessary information to confirm compliance, and that can lead to additional disputes.

“A deeper look into the root causes of this imbalance would reveal that there are three cross-cutting phenomena that hinder the functioning of the WTO: leadership deficit, increasing complexity of trade policy and negotiating issues, and a fading vision of the common purpose behind the system. Over time, these phenomena lead to the unsustainable imbalance across the vital functions.” (Page 4)

Reform of the WTO can only occur through negotiations. For the 12th Ministerial Conference to be held in 2021, the WTO needs to agree on a reform agenda and to “achieve concrete progress on issues currently under negotiation”. (Page 5) Fisheries subsidies, Joint Statement Initiatives on e-commerce, domestic regulation in services, MSMEs and investment facilitation along with backlog issues all need to be considered.

The next DG needs “authoritative knowledge of the system and long experience with its functioning” and “trust of Members in his or her impartiality”. (page 7). Mr. Mamdouh believes he is the best candidate to be the next Director-General.

During the press conference, Mr. Mamdouh responded to a wide range of questions (see below) following his opening statement. In his opening statement, Mr. Mamdouh indicated that he had reviewed with the General Council why he was running as a candidate and what he would do as Director-General. He touted his 35 years of experience and participation in the Uruguay Round. He reviewed why he perceives the organization in crisis, the root cause being the imbalance among the three legs of the system — negotiations, dispute settlement, transparency/notifications. He also talked about how to fix the problems and the differences between other organizations’ reform and that of the WTO where reform involves modifying the agreements.

On the question of whether the General Council had concerns with Mr. Mamdouh’s background (no position as minister or ambassador) and role of the Director-General, Mr. Mamdouh indicated that he hadn’t sensed any concern among the Members. In his view, ministers take national perspective, while the role of the Director-General is to be a facilitator and honest broker which requires independence. His background is exactly that. While Mr. Mamdouh agreed that political leadership is required for the next Director-General, political leadership is not synoamous with ministerial leadership.

On the question of his vision for fixing the WTO and his strategy for doing so, Mr. Mamdouh indicated that he believed the WTO Members needed to develop a sense of common purpose. His strategy would begin with reviving the negotiation function. The Director-General will need fact- based knowledge to help Members find solutions.

On the question of running against two other African candidates and whether it will make it harder to win, Mr. Mamdouh answered that it was the position of the Egyptian government that the Egyptian candidate is the only candidate who has been endorsed by the African Union through its process. Candidates from Nigeria and Kenya have not passed through the process established by the African Union.

Mr. Mamdouh was asked about whether changes were needed in the interaction between the WTO Secretariat and Members. Mr. Mamdouh responded that the WTO has a body of great expertise within the Secretariat that could be better utilized. The expertise needs to be put at the disposal of the membership; information from the Secretariat staff is provided to Members in negotiations, to panels in dispute settlement and in committees. Mr. Mamdouh wants to bring the role of the Secretariat back to where it was in the past.

Mr. Mamdouh was asked if there is an Egyptian vision that makes him unique as a candidate. He was also asked if he didn’t think it was time for a woman to lead the WTO. Mr. Mamdouh stated that his Egyptian perspective is that of a Egyptian negotiator struggling to navigate the challenges within the GATT and then deal with the new issues within the Uruguay Round (services, IP). Thus, he understands what negotiators from developing and LDCs face to effectively participate with new issues. On the question of when it is time for a woman to lead the WTO, Mr. Mamdouh indicated that any time is the right time. He believes in gender equality. But gender shouldn’t be the primary criteria in selecting a Director-General.

Mr. Mamdouh was asked a question based on his role in the GATS negotiations as to what is key to building consensus. Mr. Mamdouh believes that the key to building consensus is to mobilize support for the common purpose. Conversely, while consensus is the golden rule in how the WTO functions, Members shouldn’t impose a requirement of consensus where it is not required. If one follow these two approaches, one facilitates achieving consensus.

A question was asked on what should be the role of the US and China in the new WTO. Mr. Mamdouh responded that the role of these two Members is to engage in the WTO. Start from the point that bilateral disputes should be resolved in the WTO. Since we all believe in the multilateral process, must keep in mind that bilateral disputes and solutions have effects on others. Moreover, bilateral solutions are less likely to be disciplined and are likely to be short lived.

Asked what he would do to revive the Appellate Body, Mr. Mamdouh responded that he would build off of the work already done. Most logical and productive first step is to build on that work and see what else is needed. And there is a need to look deeper into causes which he believes are rooted in differences in legal and regulatory systems. Mr. Mamdouh has not heard any suggestions that rules within the Dispute Settlement Understanding need to be changed. He concluded by saying that the size of the problem needs to be put into perspective and one needs to remember that on this issue, the WTO Members are not starting from zero.

A question was asked on globalization, whether the golden age of globalization had passed, the challenges of new protectionism and what he would do to restore the golden age of globalization. Mr. Mamdouh indicated that he believes globalization has been in transition for a while. The challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic merely highlight some challenges and possible changes. Globalization won’t go away. Problems seen during COVID-19 relate to medical products and agricultural products. Problems with supply chains have to do with disruption. If trying to deal with resilience, solution may lie with diversification of supply vs. onshoring. Globalization is restructuring but not going away (supply closer to demand). Will continue to evolve but won’t disappear.

On the question of what is the top challenge facing the WTO and his priority actions to address, Mr. Mamdouh indicated that the top challenge is the failing sense of purpose within the membership. What he would prioritize would be working to revive the sense of common purpose.

Mr. Mamdouh was asked if there will be enough time to prepare for the next Ministerial to have positive agenda/outcome. He answered that if the selection process concludes before November, there should be sufficient time. In his view, the next Ministerial needs to be a turning point for the WTO. At MC12, the WTO must have a clear agenda for reform. There is not currently a mainstream focus on reform; issues are being raised ad hoc. Second, the WTO needs to score successes – fisheries subsidies and progress on joint statement initiatives.

Tudor Ulianovschi (Republic of Moldova)

Mr. Ulianovschi was the first candidate who met with the General Council on Thursday, July 16. He reviewed his time as the Moldovan Ambassador to the WTO and as Moldova’s Foreign Minister and his overall diplomatic and political career that spanned more than sixteen years.

He articulated his vision for the WTO if selected as the next Director-General as being

“a 3D vision and approach:

“First D is Direct Access to Ministers and political decision makers — in my capacity as a recent Minister dealing with Ministers.

“Second D is Dialogue and discussions with Geneva based Ambassadors — in my capacity as former Ambassador to the WTO — I was in your shoes and fully understand the process of work, its challenges and the potential efficient and effective solutions.

“Third D is Driving the work of the WTO Management and Secretariat, so it can better and more efficiently serve Members’ needs and continue bringing its contribution to a better system for all Members.” (Pages 2-3)

There is a need to strengthen the system by reinvigorating the negotiation function, safeguarding and improving the WTO’s two-tiered dispute settlement system, and improving compliance with notification obligations. (Pages 2-3). Incremental progress on negotiations is what is achievable.

Immediate priorities for the next Director-General include eight items, the first four of which are getting the Appellate Body reactivated, achieving resolution to the fisheries subsidies negotiations, addressing joint initiative issue (e-commerce, investment facilitation for development, domestic services regulations, MSMEs), and facilitating dialogue on other ongoing issues.

Mr.Ulianovschi provided separate discussions on dispute settlement and on COVID-19. On the latter issue, transparency of government action is crucial for traders. Members should limit export restraints and remove as soon as the situation permits. The WTO needs to continue working with other international organizations to analyze the effect of COVID-19 on agricultural supplies, supply chains as well as how to help economic recovery, particularly for developing and least developed countries.

During the press conference, Mr. Ulianovschi provided a short introductory statement and then responded to a variety of questions. His short statement reviewed his presentation to the General Council. He believes that the WTO must show its relevance, and that the WTO needs reform to restore relevance. The WTO’s negotiating function is key to achieving this and helping restore the negotiating function would be his top priority as Director-General. The second priority is to reactive the Appellate Body. Third, is improving transparency and the monitoring function of the WTO. Mr. Ulianovschi brings to the table as a candidate his experience as a former Ambassador to the WTO and as a former Minister.

On the question of how he would use the role of Director-General to ease tensions between U.S. and China, Mr. Ulianovschi responded that this topic had been discussed with Members during his meeting with the General Council. In his view, the role of the Director-General is to be an honest broker between WTO Members. The Director-General must be able to listen to concerns with a view to using his offices to engage Members involved in a dialogue process. At same time, the Director-General is not there to impose solution but to listen and raise awareness of the impact of actions on the larger organization and to mitigate harm to others. The next Director-General needs to engage in talks both in Geneva and in capitals and see that any outreach is transparent and inclusive.

There were several questions on the Appellate Body including how Mr. Ulianovschi would reactivate the Appellate Body and whether reform of the dispute settlement system should be broader than getting the Appellate Body back functioning. Mr. Ulianovschi indicated that on the provisions of the Dispute Settlement Understanding, all Members agree on the provisions as written. With the application of the DSU by the AB, there are concerns raised by the U.S. and others. The Director-General can provide a process to help Member’s discuss. Solutions to the concerns raised need to be found, but the parameters of the solutions need to be found by members themselves. In his view, the Director-General’s role is to help Members identify how to move forward on the Appellate Body impasse with resolution by the next Ministerial Conference. On the question of breadth of action on the dispute settlement system, Mr. Ulianovschi stated that Members are not looking for a complete redrafting of the Dispute Settlement Understanding. What is needed is a targeted approach to address issues raised by certain members on the operation of the Appellate Body.

Mr. Ulianovschi was asked a question of how he, if selected as the next Director-General, would withstand the political pressure being young and from a very small country. Mr. Ulianovschi noted that as a candidate he speaks in his individual capacity not in his country’s capacity. Key criteria should be competence, experience and political profile, not age or size of country the candidate is from. He has the relevant experiences to be the next Director-General. The WTO needs a person who understands the issues but also has the political experience and networking to help members to get things done. As to age, Mr. Ulianovschi has plenty of experience negotiating agreements. He has the right resilience, tenacity, ability to listen and political will to get things done.

A question was asked of what sets Mr. Ulianovschi apart from other candidates. His response was that at the end of the day, it is for Members to decide which candidate best meets their needs. All of the eight candidates have extensive backgrounds. Believes he has a good 3-D approach which will benefit members.

On the COVID-19 crisis, Mr. Ulianovschi was asked how the pandemic will impact the WTO. His response was that COVID-19 is a wakeup call to WTO and its Members. The pandemic is having major negative effects on trade and economic growth around the world. Some WTO Members have imposed export restraints and pursuant to WTO requirements have generally notified such restraints. While all Members are affected by the pandemic, there have been significant effects on those least able to handle the negative effects, particularly LDCs. There is a need to expand capacity to help such Members. As Director-General he would work with other organizations to have a unified approach on how to address COVID-19 challenges through trade to the benefit of all people.

Mr. Ulianovschi was asked whether considering that Moldova was a small country that is not a powerhouse in trade, there were experiences from his country in post-Soviet times that would inform his handling the role of Director-General. Mr. Ulianovschi answered that when Moldova joined the WTO in 2001, it joined as a developed country and made the commitments expected of a developed member. Trade is important for Moldova and is for all WTO Members. Moldova has had a neutral role in many of the issues at the WTO. Thus, coming from Moldova enhances Mr. Ulianovschi’s background for being an honest broker if selected as the next Director-General. On size of country, Members should be evaluating the experience of the candidate versus the size of the country.

A question was asked whether the consensus rule at the WTO should be changed to reduce the paralysis. Mr. Ulianovschi responded that the consensus rule was decided by Members. Consensus decision making is one of the elements of the WTO that helps members remember the greater goods and need to consider partners’ needs. Process doesn’t work well all the time. The Director-General can help facilitate Members moving forward and achieving consensus. While there are different formats at the WTO (multilateral and plurilateral), at the end, it is important that basic principles are respected. Consensus is a cornerstone of the WTO.

The last question asked was about getting the WTO out of crisis; in particular, what is the core factor causing the crisis and how would Mr. Ulianovschi address the factor if he was selected as Director-General. Mr. Ulianovschi answered that this is an existential question for the WTO. First priority, in his view, to get out of the crisis is for there to be trust among Members. The role of the Director-General is to enhance feeling of trust through confidence building steps. Many issues which have been unresolved for a long time have undermined trust. Joint initiative statement issues are advancing and give hope that the organization is relevant and can deliver. This is a good sign that there is a common purpose among the Members.

H.E. Yoo Myung-hee (Republic of Korea)

The Korean candidate has spent twenty-five years in international trade and presently serves as Korea’s Minister for Trade.

“My 25 year career in international trade has taught me that solid ground- work is the basis of an agreement, and political will is what closes the deal. I have dealt with both the technical details of agreements, as well as engaged in finalizing major trade agreements as Trade Minister. I believe my extensive experience and expertise will enable me to offer insights and creative solutions to restore and revitalize the WTO.” Page 1

Minister Yoo reviewed the nature of the challenges facing the WTO at the present time:

“We are now witnessing the threat of growing protectionism, and heightened trade tensions. Technological advances are transforming the way we produce, deliver, and consume goods and services in ways never imagined when the WTO was created. The global crisis induced by the pandemic is challenging the WTO’s purpose of ensuring the smooth flow of goods and services.

“The WTO, which was intended to provide predictability and stability in these times of turbulence, is now facing a trust deficit with all three pillars under stress.

“Despite much good will and hard work, the record of negotiations in the WTO leaves much room to be desired. There has been progress, such as the adoption of the Bali and the Nairobi packages including the Trade Facilitation Agreement, but we need to do much more to meet the challenges and realities of the 21st century. The stagnant negotiations have had negative consequences for all of the WTO’s functions, and, to some extent, contributed to the current problems facing the dispute settlement system.” (page 2)

Minister Yoo’s vision for the WTO “is to make the WTO more relevant, resilient and responsive.” (Page 2)

“The WTO needs to keep evolving to become more relevant to changing economic circumstance and realities. The WTO needs to enhance sustainability and inclusiveness to remain resilient as a champion of open trade for the next 25 years and beyond. And the WTO needs to be more responsive to global challenges and contingencies for the benefit of all of its Members.” (Page 2)

In terms of tasks should she become the next Director-General, Minister Yoo lists the first priority as the next Ministerial Conference (MC12). The second priority is WTO reform and the third is inclusive trade and sustainable development.

For the MC12, achieving an agreement on fisheries subsidies by the conference is critical. Significant progress towards a plurilateral electronic commerce agreement is another achievable objective by MC12. Progress on development issues is also critical, particularly on issues important to developing and least developed countries to help survive and come back from the COVID-19 pandemic.

On the issue of WTO reform, Minister Yoo separates the topic into three areas – updating “the rule-books and delivering agreements with real economic impact”; “restoring the dispute settlement system”; and “implementation of agreements and increased transparency.” (Page 3)

The third area, inclusive trade and sustainable development is described as follows by Minister Yoo:

“WTO reform should not be a goal in and of itself, but an instrument to promote economic prosperity and better living standards for all of its Members. To this end, the WTO should pursue inclusive trade initiatives encompassing overall development issues, as well as specific, cross-cutting issues such as MSMEs, women’s economic empowerment, and environment.

“Among others, we should deepen our efforts to help developing countries, especially LDCs, secure a larger share in the growth in international trade. We should fully implement what has been agreed for LDCs and strengthen our technical assistance and capacity building programs. Further, while maintaining a central role for the WTO in seeking these important values, I will support cooperation with other international organizations in a proactive and forthcoming manner. This will help broaden the available resources and multilateral commitment to achieving Members’ goals.” (pages 3-4)

Minister Yoo’s prepared statement to the General Council concludes with a section on how she sees the role of the Director-General — bringing optimism, having a vision based on realism, helping rebuild trust in the Organization. “[T]he Director-General has to be an effective, trusted, and informed facilitator and a person who knows how and when to act to help achieve consensus and agreement.” (Page 4)

At the press conference, Minister Yoo provided a short statement which was followed by a range of questions. In her short statement, Minister Yoo stated that the WTO is at a crossroads. Her vision is to make the WTO more relevant, resilient and responsive (as reviewed in her prepared statement). She brings her 25 years experience to the job.

The first question asked that since Korea was one of the countries who agreed to export limits to avoid steel and aluminum tariffs imposed by the U.S., what thoughts did Minister Yoo have on voluntary export restraints (VERs) under the WTO. Minister Yoo responded that VERs are banned by the WTO. But the current situation is different as US has taken action pursuant to national security provisions, and Korea was addressing intended actions by U.S. under that law. Cases are before panels challenging U.S. national security action as inconsistent with WTO, so Minister Yoo would not comment on the merits of the cases at this time. While aware of different views on whether national security issues can be challenged at the WTO, since the issue is in front of panels, she would not comment further.

On the issue of The Appellate Bidy impasse, Minister Yoo was asked how she would solve the impasse. She indicated that Members have very divergent views on the role of the Appellate Body. All members understand the need for a two-tier dispute settlement system. If selected as the next Director-General, Minister Yoo would accelerate members’ consultations to resolve the issue.

Minister Yoo was asked how hard it would be to move from Korea’s Minister for Trade to the WTO’s Director-General and whether she would have problems living in Geneva or working for an international organization. Minister Yoo indicated that she believes she is in best position to understand all Members views at the WTO. During her lifetime, Korea has gone through many stages of development, and she has seen trade issues through her country’s experience at different levels of economic development. Because of her diverse experiences at Korea’s different stages of developments, she is in a good position to understand concerns of all countries if selected as the next Director-General. As for living abroad, Minister Yoo was stationed Beijing for 3 years and Singapore for 3 1/2 years. She would have no problem living abroad or working for an international organization.

On the interim arbitration mechanism adopted by the EU, China and about 20 other Members, Korea is not a party. Does Minister Yoo have any concerns that the interim arrangement (MPIA) might become permanent? Minister Yoo responded that the MPIA was being used by some Members to overcome the current vacuum with the Appellate Bid shut down. The key for the WTO is to focus on finding a permanent solution, and she would do that if selected as the next Director-General.

A question was asked how Minister Yoo viewed the question of the status of Members as developed or developing countries particularly in light of Korea viewing itself as a developing country in the WTO although Korea has indicated it will not seek additional special and differential treatment under future WTO Agreements. Minister Yoo started her response by noting that the Marrakesh Agreement requires that the WTO work to help developing and least developed countries LDC countries secure their fair share of trade. There are competing issues at the WTO. Should the WTO make special and differential treatment provisions more operational in existing Agreements is one issue. Should the WTO change the classification status of some countries based on economic development is the other issue. For Korea, the. world has changed, and countries have changed in terms of their stage of economic development. Korea decided to take on more responsibility based on its changing level of economic development. But many countries continue to need special and differential treatment. It would be ideal for developing countries to take on more responsibilities as they are able. But this a sensitive issue on which there is no consensus as yet.

A question was asked as to how Minister Yoo would restore trust if selected as the next Director-General. Minister Yoo noted her experience in negotiating trade deals with all level of countries around the world. She knows what it takes to negotiate and what it takes to bring negotiations to a close. She is confident that she can earn confidence from Members and achieve tangible outcomes. The key is to obtain even a small success at the MC12 (e.g., fisheries subsidies agreement by then) which would help build trust and convince world that progress can happen at the WTO.

Minister Yoo was asked if in a consensus system, she could gain the support of Japan for her candidacy considering she had led Korea’s dispute with Japan on semiconductor materials. Minister Yoo remarked that she is here as a candidate in her own capacity and not as part of the Korean government. She would not comment on the ongoing dispute between Japan and Korea. She did note that Japan and Korea work closely on many issues at the WTO, and both are strong supporters of the multilateral trading system. Therefore, she is confident that Japan will look at all candidates and decide which has the best qualifications to move the WTO forward.

One questionner indicated he had heard from an analyst that there is some concern that China might block Korea’s candidacy as China might otherwise have to give up its Deputy Director-General slot. Minister Yoo was also asked if it was time for a woman to lead the WTO. Minister Yoo felt it would be inappropriate to comment on the position of other countries, each of whom must make their own decision as to whom to support for the next Director-General. She hadn’t heard about the rumor mentioned. She added that China and Korea have worked closely on many matters. She was in China for three years and has negotiated with China. She would be doing outreach to China and other Members to see how she could work with them if selected as the next Director-General. On gender, for the last 25 years, she has been a pioneer in the Korean government, the first woman to hold her position in trade. Promotion has been based on merit not on gender. The WTO Members should pick the right person to help WTO move forward. All of the women candidates are well qualified. She knows she is well qualified based on her experience.

What does it mean for the WTO to be relevant, and how would you bring on major members who may not agree with the issue being considered? Minister Yoo stated that the WTO needs to revitalize its negotiating function and must be able to enforce its rules (restore AB). Given 21st century realities, WTO needs to update its rule book and to achieve things that can have real global effect such as joint initiative efforts on e-commerce, MSMEs, investments, and other issues. That said, there are open issues from The Doha Development Agenda that are not moving because there are different views on how to move forward. In terms of how you bring members to the negotiating table, part of the answer is to obtain small successes to build trust and momentum.

Amb. Amina C. Mohamed (Republic of Kenya)

Ministrr Mohamed was the last candidate who met with the General Council on Thursday, July 16. She started by outlining what she referred to as “the three main themes of my vision for the WTO: Reform, Recover, Renewal.”

“The WTO needs urgent reforms so it can once again play its full part as an engine of growth, development and stability. Reform is all the more urgent because an effective WTO is needed to help create the conditions for a sustainable recovery from the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. And looking further ahead, the WTO needs to renew its capacity to negotiate and to develop new trade rules and disciplines for the challenges of the very near future.” (Pages 2-3)

Minister Mohamed reviewed that the WTO was challenged before COVId-19 with few new agreements since its creation, with increased trade tensions, and with a dispute settlement system that has lost at least temporarily its Appellate Body. The COVID-19 adds huge complications being the largest economic contraction since the Great Depression. Recovery will be a challenge, and there is an urgent need to update the trading system to address the issues of today including “climate change, the digital revolution, poverty and sustainable development.” (page 5)

On the topic of renewal, Minister Mohamed noted that

“Renewal has to start with facing up to the defects that have weakened the system in recent years: the inability to update rules to reflect the changing realities of how trade is conducted; the sterility of ideological standoffs; the retreat into defensiveness; and the sense of the benefits of trade not being equitably shared.” (Page 7)

“Renewal should also build upon the WTO’s core values and achievements. Trade has been transformational. It has helped to lift close to 1 billion people out of poverty and facilitated the attainment of higher living standards in countries at all levels of development. These successes were possible because Members did not see trade as a zero-sum game. They understood that trade-offs were needed to produce outcomes. All Members should contribute to trade opening and facilitation efforts, especially those most in a position to do so.” (Page 7)

While supporting bilateral and regional trade agreements, Minister Mohamed, noted that such agreements are not a substitute for multilateral agreements.

She reviewed the importance of dispute settlement to the system and the need to resolve the existing impasse on the Appellate Body.

“The WTO should give effect to its development objectives in a practical and enabling way, not forgetting its special responsibility towards its most vulnerable Members, particularly least-developed countries. It also needs to play its part in the important task of advancing the economic empower- ment of women through trade.”

Minister Mohamed ended her prepared statement to the General Council by reviewing her qualifications for the job, including her time in Geneva as Ambassador from Kenya, her chairing the top WTO bodies (General Council, Dispute Settlement Body, Trade Policy Review Body), her time as Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and heading the 10th Ministerial Conference and her role as a facilitator in helping Members achieve agreements on “the TRIPS amendment, the Expanded Information Technology Agreement and the Nairobi Decision on Export Competition”. (Page 12)

At the press conference, Minister Mohamed made a brief opening statement and was followed by questions. In her opening statement, Minister Mohamed stated that the WTO is being challenged like never before referring to the changing world trade order, limited negotiating success, and breakdown of the appellate body, and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. She then reviewed her vision, the three “r’s” — reform, recovery and renewal. She concluded by reviewing her qualifications for the Director-General.

The first questioner asked what lessons Minister Mohamed had learned from her 2013 run and why she thought that countries that hadn’t supported her then would do so now. Minister Mohamed responded that 2020 is a different time with a different group of candidates. Since 2013, she has had many additional experiences that add to her qualifications and hence help her candidacy. She mentioned in particular her role in chairing the 10th Ministerial and the successes that were achieved including the agriculture export subsidy agreement, expansion of the Information Technology Agreement and amending the TRIPS Agreement. So 2020 is the right time for her candidacy.

One questioner asserted that the agreement on export subsidies was negotiated with a small group and given to the full membership on a take it or leave it basis and asked if this was a correct way to conduct inclusive negotiations. Minister Mohamed stated that the questioner was incorrect in the process used. Negotiations were conducted in different configurations but always went back to the full Membership. If anyone felt left out, they had the ability to block the agreement. That didn’t happen. Nairobi worked extremely well, and is an example of how the negotiations should proceed.

One questioner inquired whether the ongoing FTA negotiations between the US and Kenya was an advantage or disadvantage in her candidacy. Minister Mohamed responded that she didn’t consider it relevant. Obviously, the FTA negotiations are just one of many happening around the world. She is hopeful that the negotiations and eventual agreement will be a model for her region and open to other countries. It should be viewed as very positive.

What would you do differently if you become the next DG? Minister Mohamed responded that she would do a lot differently. She indicated that her experiences are different and her skills are different. With the WTO at a crossroads, there is a great need for an experienced negotiator to come in and lead. The agenda would be established through consultations with Members. She would also hope to focus on the gender issue.

if selected as DG, will you be more engaged in resolving trade tensions between major players? If yes, what tactics would you use? Minister Mohamed reviewed the types of powers that a Director-General has to work with Members. For example, the Director-General has engagement powers and can encourage members to consult, use of good offices of the Director-General. So while the Director-General has only limited powers, they can be used effectively to help members to use the system to resolve differences.

The next questioner inquired as to what the Minister’s views were on whether it is time for an African or a woman to lead WTO. The Minister was also asked about the reform proposal from the U.S. to clarify who qualified as a developing country (versus current system where developing country status is a matter of self-selection). On the issue of gender or regional preferences to become the next Director-General, Minister Mohamed believed that the key consideration is whether a particular candidate is best qualified to handle the job. If a female has the qualities, obviously great. Members shouldn’t select a woman just to have a woman; they should pick the best candidate. On the issue of development, this is an issue for the members. Only category of members defined in the WTO is least developed countries where the United Nations listing is used. For all other Members, there are no definitions. It will be up to Members to decide if the issue is ripe for discussion.

One questioner wanted to know if Minister Mohamed has had solutions for the WTO reform needs why she hadn’t pursued them before now. Minister Mohamed indicated that it was up to Members to decide what issues to pursue. WTO is at a crossroads. Membership needs to agree on what to consider in any reform effort, what sequence of issues may make sense and so on. Questions of reform have been floated here in Geneva for many years. When she was Kenyan Ambassador to the WTO, the WTO was beehive of activity. In her prior roles both as Anbassador and as Minister and chair of the 10th Ministerial, she had in fact achieved with the membership significant reforms including managing to amend the TRIPS Agreement, achieving an agreement in agricultural export subsidies and more.

When asked what her approach would be to deal with trade tensions between US and China, Minister Mohamed stated that she would encourage all members to resolve their trade differences within the WTO rules.

On the issue of how to remove the impasse on the Appellate Body, Minister Mohamed indicated that Members need to consult and negotiate. The WTO needs members to find solutions to permit the second-tier of dispute settlement to be restored. A Director-General DG can offer technical assistance and process to help Members find the solutions.

A series of questions on reform were asked by a questioner – what would Minister Mohamed do to move reform forward? Should reform be incremental or broader based? How does MC12 factor into this? Minister Mohamed indicated that she would help members identify what they want and encourage dialogue. By the time of the next ministerial in 2021, she hoped there would be some clarity as to types of reforms needed and supported —restoring the Dispute Settlement system, updating rule book. There are lots of potential issues, but it is up to the Membership on what gets examined.

Is it Africa’s turn to lead? Why couldn’t Africa come together around one candidate? Minister Mohamed responded that Africa takes the WTO very seriously. That’s why there are three candidates. There is no reason to penalize Africa for having three candidates. Each of the three candidates is very accomplished. Africa should be commended for putting them forward.

H.E. Mohammad Mazaid Al-Tuwaijri (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia)

Minister Al-Tuwaijri was the first candidate to meet with the General Council on Friday, July 17. His background is largely in business with the last four years serving Saudi Arabia as the Minister of the Economy and Planing. He started his prepared comments by expressing support all those affected by COVID-19, and noted his involvement for Saudi Arabia in addressing the pandemic in his country and the important role the WTO plays in keeping trade flowing.

Minister Al-Tuwaijri stated that his family had a long history of trading which involved traveling and following the North star. Like his family, the WTO Members must establish goals, set a course (their North star) to follow to accomplish the goals. The role of the Director-General is like a compass to help Members stay on the course towards achieving their goals. The WTO’s “challenging situation has become even more difficult with the pandemic; it will likely get worse; and, we know that trade policy is an essential part of the response to the pandemic itself, and will be key to our collective recovery.” (Pages 1-2)

Minister Al-Tuwaijri identified three questions to consider:

“First, what opportunities and solutions will emerge from current challenges?

“Second, how can Members work together to leverage new ideas, new rules and new technologies to solve the emerging problems that we face today, and the issues that will arise tomorrow?

“And, third, * * *, what kind of leadership is required to ensure that the
multilateral trading system delivers on the vision and objectives set by Members?” (Page 2)

Minister Al-Tuwaijri then indicates that the Membership needs to ensure “steady progress is made on delivering the goals and objectives set by Members.” (Page 2) Because the WTO is not performing, there is a need for a performance assessment to determine why. Based on his business background and government experience, if Minister Al-Tuwaijri is selected as the next Director-General, he would implement critical success factors from the goals and objectives of the Members, establish key performance indicators, and collect evidence and data to determine progress in meeting objectives.

“As part of this effort, feedback loops of constructive suggestions will be encouraged to deliver continuous improvement.

“If we do not respond to shortcomings, the system will not run smoothly,
stakeholders will become dissatisfied, and alternative means will be found outside the WTO to achieve your goals and objectives.” (page 4)

Minister Al-Tuwaijri noted that in its first twenty-five years, the WTO had maintained the status quo, but hadn’t adapted to the changing trade environment.

“Concerning working together through negotiations, I believe that Members will participate in negotiations when they are convinced that the agenda includes an incentive for them to participate. Therefore, in order to have a successful multilateral negotiation, the agenda needs to be balanced – it needs to include something for everyone. I support plurilateral negotiations as long as they are open to all Members, their outcome is applied to all on a most-favored nation basis, and they do not create rules that prejudice the interests of non-participants.” (PAGE 5) Minister Al-Tuwaijri indicated that the work of Members could be bolstered by WTO Secretariat research and interaction with the business communities of Members.

On the issue of opportunities from the current challenges, Minister Al-Tuwaijri expressed that the delay in the next Ministerial Conference (MC12) should permit completing of the fisheries subsidies negotiations and the plurilateral talks on e-commerce both important “issues in the public good”. (Page 6). He also suggested increasing the frequency of Ministerial meetings to annually. On the issue of special and differential treatment, “without negotiations that include incentives for everyone to participate actively, I do not think it will be possible for Members to address the issue of SDT.” (Page 6)

During the press conference, Minister Al-Tuwaijri provided a short opening statement and then answered questions. In his opening statement, Minister Al-Tuwaijri reviewed the current situation facing the WTO and the need for the next Director-General to have a strong reform agenda. COVID-19 will make the global trade situation more uncertain.

The first questioner asked how Minister Al-Tuwaijri could obtain regional support with the current conflict between Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Minister Al-Tuwaijri indicated that he would not comment on the dispute between Members. He noted that Qatar is a member of the WTO and believed the next Director-General should focus on what the goals of members are, how to achieve the goals and address the uncertainty created by the pandemic.

What is the greatest problem facing the WTO, and what is your plan to fix it? Minister Al-Tuwaijri noted that in the first twenty-five years of the WTO history, there have been some successes in terms of new agreements. However, the world has changed significantly in terms of trade. He sees the biggest issue facing the WTO as being the process of negotiations. In Minister Al-Tuwaijri’s view there is no process for negotiations. This results in countries going outside of WTO to find solutions in some circumstances. Thus, in his view, process enhancement is needed. Minister Al-Tuwaijri’s strengths are in management and leadership. These two characteristics are key to leading the WTO forward. The next Director-General should focus on process enhancement, design metrics so members can see progress. Moreover, whenever there is a dispute, the WTO should be looking for the root cause as well as resolving the particular dispute. If don’t get to root causes, disputes will recur. Minister Al-Tuwaijri approaches the challenges facing the WTO from a management perspective.

The next question reviewed interest by some Members in having a Director-General from an African country but noted that there has never been a Diirector-General from an Arab country either and sought the Minister’s comments. Minster Al-Tuwaijri noted that WTO Members need to think about what they need in the next Director-General . If management and leadership are the important characteristics that the next Director-General should have (which is the Minister’s view), he has those characteristics. First, he has twenty-five years management experience in the private sector where trade was important and multifaceted (trade finance, logistics, insurance, manufacturing, energy). He would bring that experience to the WTO Director-General position. Secondly, he has been the Minister of Economy and Planning, involved in major transformation (diversification) for the last four years, including policy making. He developed a delivery unit which measures performance and helps fill gaps. He would bring that experience to the WTO Director-General position as well.

On the issue of WTO reform, Minister AlTuwaijri recognized that the WTO is a member driven organization. Second, the Director-General has a function to facilitate and to assess, but there is also room to improve the Director-General’s role. For example, the next ministerial (MC12) has been delayed til 2021. The delay provides an opportunity to improve the discussion at MC 12 and the outcomes that are possible. Bringing management and leadership skills to the Director-General position will permit setting goals, metrics for measuring progress in achieving those goals and providing a feedback loop on gaps that need to be addressed. Certain current issues should be achievable, such as fisheries subsidies and e-commerce. In the Minister’s view, COVID-19 and postpandemic recovery provide the WTO an opportunity to address core needs of Members by doing a performance assessment. Where are the gaps in performance; why did those gaps develop; how to proceed? From his business and government experience, Minister Al-Tuwaijri knows that this type of transformation for the WTO to a more goal-oriented organization is possible.

Is it time for a woman to lead the WTO and what sets you apart from the other candidates. Minister Al-Tuwaijri stated that on women empowerment, he has a good track record in terms of working on woman empowerment in business and government As to what distinguishes him from other candidate, Minister Al-Tuwaijri reflected on his long business career and the need for specific goals and targets. He also reviewed his experience as a minister involved in the transformation of Saudi Arabia which is getting results. He brings those experiences to the WTO.

Why don’t Arab countries unite around one candidate where there are two candidates and does that hurt your chances? Minister Al-Tuwaijri remarked that the WTO is a member driven organization. Hence all WTO members can nominate candidates. All candidates have different experiences which provides much for Members to consider and choose from. For himself, the Minister noted that Saudi Arabia is presently president of G20 and has initiated its own reform program a few years back. Thus, Saudi Arabia has had the political will for reform. Coming from that culture can be useful to his candidacy.

Longterm observers view issues as revolving around political will versus being caused by a lack of management skills. Minister Al-Tuwaijri stated that while both technical and political elements exist, he believes that management and leadership would permit improvements in the process of negotiations which in turn would permit both the technical and political elements to have a better chance to work. How to improve the negotiation process is a management issue. Of course, there are political elements, and he has political background and strengths as well.

On the question about the future of the WTO, Minister Al-Tuwaijri noted that the future of the WTO is a member choice — the WTO is about their goals, their choices. The Director-General is a facilitator. But the organization is drifting away from its core objectives. Thus, there is a need to review root causes of this drift. He believes the WTO can create key performance indicators to prevent future drift and monitor early warning signs to catch major disputes early. The Minister wants the debate to shift from political will to how the Members can go back to the organization’s original goals and deliver on them.

On the Appellate Body, what is your plan to addressing U.S. concerns and do you plan to get it back functioning? Minister Al-Tuwaijri’s approach is the same as reviewed elsewhere. Determine what is root cause of AB not functioning. He believes it is because negotiations are not functioning well. Therefore, he wants to get the negotiating process to improve and to gain data to improve the system. For example, he believes it is important to be able to quantify the effect of delay of even one month in resolution of disputes.

Dr. Liam Fox (United Kingdom)

Dr. Fox was the last candidate to meet with the General Council. He has served in Parliament for many years and was Secretary of State for Defence and Secretary of State for International Trade under different UK administrations.

Dr. Fox started his prepared statement “by acknowledging the scale of the challenge the world currently faces in the COVID pandemic.” (Page 1). He commented that the WTO was facing problems before the pandemic., meaning to progress, it cannot be business as usual.

“But I know from talking to many of you, including in this last week, that
there is a widespread feeling that things are not as they should be. Yes,
there are technical issues to be overcome but the real problems of the
WTO are not technical. Our problem is the lack of political momentum.
There is too little political will to make the compromises needed for the
multilateral trading system to evolve and too little vision to make those
compromises easier. We must rediscover that political will and find the
right language to express our vision about the opportunities that trade
can bring to a new generation.” (Pages 2-3)

On the question of what qualifications the next Director-General should have, Dr. Fox stated that “it is not where the new DG comes from that matters but the skills and experience, especially the political experience, that they are able to bring to the organisation for the benefit of each and every one of our members. I believe that my 28 years in politics, and my years serving in senior cabinet posts such as trade and representing the UK at the top table on global issues give me the right experience to bring the renewed momentum, commitment and compromise, which will allow us to return this institution to greater global relevance.” (Page 3)

Dr. Fox expressed his strong support for open trade in a rules-based international trade system. He expressed concern for the trading system under current conditions and urged Members to recommit to the core principles of most-favoured nation, national treatment and transparency of commitments.

On the issue of challenges ahead for the new Director-General, Dr. Fox indicated that one of the first tasks would be to help Members achieve a successful Ministerial Conference (MC12 ) in 2021. A fisheries subsidies agreement needs to be completed as quickly as possible. Similarly progress on Joint Initiative issues like “e-commerce, services, MSMEs and investment” would be a priority. (Page 7) Outstanding issues on agriculture (subsidies, public stockholding for food security, cotton, and others) and WTO reform are other important issues to be addressed.

Dr. Fox reviewed concerns about increasing trade restrictive measures in the last decade and flowing from the pandemic and how they undermine other activities such as Aid for Trade.

On the topic of women and trade, Dr. Fox reviewed the importance of the issue and his own history of working to improve business opportunities for women and roles in government including the U.K. trade ministry. Dr. Fox committed that if he was selected as the next Director-General, he would “ensure that at least half of the WTO’s most senior leadership team are women.” (Page 9)

“[T]rade is not an end in itself. It is a means to an end. It is a
means by which we create and share prosperity. That prosperity
underpins social cohesion and that social cohesion in turn underpins
political stability. That political stability is the bedrock of our collective
security.

“And I say this because we must understand protectionism does not
come without a price tag. If we deny people access to prosperity and
opportunity through trade then we should not be surprised if the
outcomes, whether mass migration, political radicalisation or failing
states, come back to bite us.

“As an organisation we all need to recapture that optimism that comes
from committing to shared values. Yes, we’ve taken a billion people out
of extreme poverty but that cannot remotely be the end of our ambitions.

“We need the political momentum to take us forward. It is only with vision,
and shared purpose, that we can find the compromises required to meet
the challenges I’ve set out — reversing the rise in trade restrictive measures, recommitting ourselves to the founding principles to which we have all
agreed, while updating and strengthening this institution so it’s fit to tackle the challenges of the 21st Century.

“I believe I have the skills and experience to deliver that political
momentum.” (pages 10-11)

During the press conference, Dr. Fox provided a short opening statement which was followed by press questions. Dr. Fox’s opening statement reviewed some key points. This is not going to be business as usual. COVID-19 will affect the global economy and world trade. WTO is a great organization that has helped move 1 billion people out of poverty. There is a feeling in Geneva that the WTO has lost some of the political momentum. Negotiators can’t make compromises if don’t have common goals. The WTO can’t just focus on legacy issues (agriculture) but must address the changed trading environment and also recommit to the principles of a multilateral trading system. Negative consequences of alternative outcome are too dark.

Why is the multilateral trading system important to the large parties? Dr. Fox indicated that he viewed the Director-General position to not be one of taking sides in bilateral disputes but to maintain the international trading system. If Members don’t enforce what currently exists, what is the credibility of new rules signed onto later? He stated that all Members have benefited from the multilateral trading system. The alternative to a rules- based system is not acceptable. That is true for most countries, not just smaller countries. He used the examples of the 4th and 5th largest economies, Germany and UK, for whom global trade is a major component of their economies.

On Brexit, is it an advantage or disadvantage for Dr. Fox’s candidacy with the EU? Dr. Fox stated that it was good that not everyone in the world sees all issues through the Brexit prism. If he becomes the next Director-General, he would be available to all Members on the same basis. While not directly relevant to the Director-General selection process, he hopes the UK and EU will reach a good trade agreement and believes it will be important for COVID recovery. On who the EU chooses, Dr. Fox believes the EU will likely pick a candidate who is most in line with their views on the characteristics and experiences needed for the job.

Is there a British perspective? Dr. Fox noted that he believes so in how he sees the role of the Director-General, which he analogizes to that of the British Prime Minister. In Britain, the Prime Minister is first among equals. Dr. Fox envisions the same concept applying to the WTO’s Director-General. On the question of whether Britain has a strong commitment to free trade, Dr. Fox noted that Britain has a very strong commitment to free trade. He is worried about threats to free trade today. He was surprised that in the General Council meeting he received very few questions about what free trade brings to consumers. Most of the questions were from a producer perspective. Trade liberalization is obviously very important to consumers. He would like to see the WTO unleash consumer interests more.

Dr. Fox received a question on whether it was premature for the U.K. to put forward a candidate since it has only recently obtained trade policy freedom from the EU. Dr. Fox’s answer was it was not too early. He noted the U.K.’s long history of promoting free trade. Currently besides negotiations with the EU, they are engaged in various other FTA negotiations and looking to adopt or further liberalize their participation in various FTAs between the EU and other countries.

There was a question on geographical diversity and his being European when most prior Director-Generals have been European. Dr. Fox stated that he understands the idea of diversity in personnel which he generally supports. What he is hearing from Members is that this organization has great personnel, but the organization is not where it should be. In Dr. Fox’s view, problems at the WTO are not technical but rather political. Whoever is the next Director-General will have to have difficult conversations with major members. He has met those leaders. Key is what the Director-General brings to the organization in skills and experience. Other aspect mentioned by some is gender diversity. Dr. Fox has been committed to gender diversity in his positions in the U.K. He has committed to having at least half of senior WTO officials be women if he is selected as the next Director-General.

One questioner asked if Dr. Fox had any Member is mind when he raised the need to support a rules-based system. Dr. Fox replied that he did not. He stated that at the end of World War II, nations set out principles in the GATT that have stood the test of time. Problem today is that various members have taken exception to particular rules. While exceptions or waivers are needed for some developing and least developed countries, it was not possible to have Members decide which rules applied to them. If Members don’t comply with existing agreements, what value do future agreements have? Countries at different stages of development access benefits of free trade under the current system by committing to basic principles.

A question was asked about the deficit of trust among Members of the WTO, and why Dr. Fox would be the right person to lead the organization and restore trust. Dr. Fox noted that a similar question had been asked during the General Council meeting. Important to know what is meat by trust. On the issue of how do parties get to trust, it is by the experience of behavior over time. Transparency and the sharing of information are big elements to enabling trust. In the current environment, the next Director-General will need a willingness to have conversations that are uncomfortable but necessary. The role of a Director-General is not to take sides but to understand both sides of a dispute between Members. In Dr. Fox’s view a political figure is better able to bring qualities to the role of the Director-General needed to build confidence. Separately, Dr. Fox stressed the importance in the present circumstances of being optimistic but also realistic. He believes that it would be a mistake for the Director-General to overpromise likely outcomes in the current circumstances.

As the only candidate from a developed country, does this give you an advantage? Dr. Fox noted that each candidate has different background and so could be viewed by some as advantaged or disadvantaged on the basis of geographic origin, gender and other factors. Dr. Fox does believe coming from a G20 country may be an advantage in the current cirumstances because of the substantial contraction in openness amongst G20 countries. He stated that the world is in a more difficult position re trade now than we were during the financial crisis. In 2009 only 0.7% of G20 import trade was covered by restrictive measures. By 2019 fully 10.3% of G20 imports were covered by restrictive measures. To come out of the economic challenges presented by the pandemic, all WTO Members have to abide by WTO commitments. That message may be easier to be delivered by a G20 country Director-General. Dr. Fox indicated he would have no problem delivering the message.

A question was asked of how Dr. Fox would address the broad concerns of U.S. with the WTO. Dr. Fox noted that the U.S. has some very specific concerns with the WTO, particularly with regards to the Appellate Body. Dr. Fox stated that the WTO has the Appellate Body because countries felt panels in GATT disputes went too wide. The Appellate Body was set up with a limited mandate. He is aware that there are different views of the role of Appellate Body and whether it has engaged in mission creep or handled incomplete texts by filling them out. If WTO Members are able to get back to a more narrow definition of the function of the Appellate Body, there may be some concept of precedent being set. Dr. Fox asks the question, does everyone want the AB to be functioning properly or not. If not, the multilateral trading system is under threat as obligations can’t be enforced. Believe there is room for compromise.

The last question inquired into what reform is needed. Dr. Fox articulated that reform should be viewed in three buckets. The first is conceptual reform. By this he means, Members recommitting to the basic principles of the WTO (most favoured nation, national treatment and transparency of commitments). He believes this is what MC 12 needs to focus on. The second is organizational reform. By this Dr. Fox means what does the team look like, the Director-General being first among equals; selecting Secretariat staff that are the most talented and challenging group. The third is policy reform. By that, Dr. Fox means what issues will be addressed — legacy issues and issues to update organization such as fisheries subsidies; resolution of the Appellate Body impasse. Dr. Fox concluded by saying that the Director-General position is a job for a politician not for a technocrat at this time.

World Trade Organization — Search for a new Director-General

· May 15, 2020 · Selection of WTO Director-General · , , , , , , , , , · No Comments

On May 14, 2020, the WTO’s Director-General Roberto Azevedo announced during a virtual meeting of all WTO Members that he would be stepping down from his position on August 31st, one year ahead of the end of his second four year term which ends August 31, 2021. His message to the membership was that the decision was personal and was intended to permit the WTO to choose a new Director-General hopefully before his departure and to avoid a dilution of effort needed for the next Ministerial Conference which has been postponed from June 2020 to either summer or winter of 2021. The current Chair of the WTO General Council, Ambassador David Walker of New Zealand, indicated that he would be notifying Members shortly of the start of the selection process and would be consulting to see if the process could be expedited in light of DG Azevedo’s departure in three and a half months. Both statements are linked here and reproduced below. https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news20_e/dgra_14may20_e.htm.

WTO-_-2020-News-items-DG-Azevêdo-announces-he-will-step-down-on-31-August

Procedures for the Appointment of Directors-General

Since 2003, there have been procedures for the appointment of directors-general adopted by the General Council of the WTO (10 December 2002), The procedures are included in WT/L/509.

The timeline laid out in the procedures calls for the process to start nine months prior to the “expiry of the term of an incumbent Director-General.” WT/L/509, para. 7. So the current situation will either run over beyond DG Azevedo’s departure (indeed potentially to as late as sometime in February 2021) or will have to be seriously expedited (as potentially permitted under para. 23).

While expediting the process is possible, the various steps required by the process suggest that it is highly unlikely a new WTO Director-General will have been agreed to by the time DG Azevedo steps down. Thus, the WTO will likely face a vacancy for some period of time. Para. 23 of the procedures agreed to would then require the General Council to designate one of the four Deputy Directors-General to serve as Acting Director-General until the selection process for a new Director-General is completed. Thus, if there is a vacancy beginning September 1st, the General Council will be selecting an Acting Director-General from among these individuals — Yonov Frederick Agah (Nigeria), Karl Brauner (Germany), Alan Wolff (US) and Yi Xiaozhun (China).

Timing of Steps Absent Expedition

The procedures (WT/L/509) provide for the following timeline if a selection process occurs within the nine months outlined:

  1. “Members shall have one month after the start of the appointment process to nominate candidates. Nominations shall be submitted by Members only, and in respect of their own nationals.” Para. 8.
  2. Chair of the General Council has materials distributed to members as received and sends a consolidated list of candidates after the close of the one month period. Para. 10.
  3. “The candidates nominated shall then have three months to make themselves known to Members and to engage in discussions on the pertinent issues facing the Organization.” Para. 8.
  4. “As early as possible after the close of the one-month nomination period, candidates shall be invited to meet with Members at a formal General Council meeting. Candidates will be invited to make a brief presentation, including their vision for the WTO, to be followed by a question- and-answer period.” Para. 14.
  5. Months 5 and 6 after initiation, “the General Council shall proceed, through a process of consultations, to narrow the field of candidates and ultimately to arrive at its choice for appointment.” Para. 15.
  6. The process which is led by the Chair of the General Council and several facilitators, looks to find the candidate “around whom consensus can be built.” Para. 17. Depending on the number of candidates, there can be successive rounds to find candidates least likely to attract consensus who are then expected to withdraw. Para. 18.
  7. If successful, the Chair of the General Council with the support of the facilitators will “submit the name of the candidate most likely to attract consensus and recommend his or her appointment by the General Council.” Para. 19.
  8. “The process shall conclude with a meeting of the General Council convened not later than three months prior to the expiry of an incumbent’s term, at which a decision to appoint a new Director-General shall be taken.” Para. 7
  9. If General Council can’t take a decision by consensus, Members can “consider the possibility of recourse to a vote as a last resort.” Para. 20.

The full list of procedures is embedded below (WT/L/509).

WTL509

Assuming Amb. Walker sends out a notification in the next day or so, a normal process would result in a General Council decision in the second half of November. If there is a vacancy, the new Director-General should be able to assume responsibilities as soon thereafter as his/her schedule permits, even if not three months after the decision.

Process in 2012-2013

The selection process in 2012 started in December with nine applications received by December 31. The WTO press release showing the candidates and linking to their statements, CVs and other materials is linked here. https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news13_e/dgsel_03jan13_e.htm. There was interest by many developing countries in seeing that the selection process kept in mind paragraph 13 of the procedures dealing with representativeness of candidates which states,

“13. In order to ensure that the best possible candidate is selected to head the WTO at any given time, candidatures representing the diversity of Members across all regions shall be invited in the nominations process. Where Members are faced in the final selection with equally meritorious candidates, they shall take into consideration as one of the factors the desirability of reflecting the diversity of the WTO’s membership in successive appointments to the post of Director-General.”

Because the DG slot at the WTO had been filled by three Europeans, one New Zealander and one from Thailand (with Pascal Lamy of France the last DG), many developing countries sought a developing country candidate assuming there were well qualified candidates from many countries. See WT/GC/M/139 at 13-15 (paras. 50 – 60).

Of the nine candidates, eight were from countries that classify themselves as developing countries within the WTO (Ghana, Costa Rica, Indonesia, Kenya, Jordan, Mexico, the Republic of Korea and Brazil). The sole developed country candidate was from New Zealand. All candidates had solid credentials.

Meetings with the candidates by the General Council occurred in late January (29-31) where each candidate was given 15 minutes for an opening statement and then participated in a question and answer session of an hour and fifteen minutes. See, e.g., WT/GC/M/142 (minutes of meeting held on Jan. 29-31) posted 16 May 2013.

Three rounds of consultations were held beginning in early April, with the result that at a General Council meeting on May 14, the Chair of the General Council put forward Roberto Azevedo from Brazil as the candidate most likely to achieve consensus and the General Council agreed. WT/GC/M/144 (minutes of meeting held on May 14) posted 4 July 2013.

Mr. Azevedo then assumed the role of Director-General as of September 1, 2013 and was reappointed for a second four years in 2017.

Prognosis for 2020

One would expect that there will be a number of developed country Members who put forward candidates in the next thirty days on the assumption that the pattern will be developed, developing, developed, developing and Brazil has just completed seven years with their candidate as DG.

Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Switzerland, Norway, the United Kingdom and one or more member countries from the EU would seem to be possibilities. The U.S. is not included in the list simply because of its prior lack of putting forward candidates and current Administration and Congressional concerns with the WTO, although the U.S. concern with the need for reforms could result in a surprise. The Republic of Korea is not included as it has considered itself a developing country, though it may still put forward a candidate and note that it is not seeking special and differential treatment on current or future negotiations in light of its development. I would be surprised if the United Kingdom puts forward a candidate just based on the serious trade negotiations that the U.K. is engaged in with the EU and the United States and their recent resumption of trade policy responsibilities following Brexit.

Developing countries are not prevented from putting forward candidates, and I assume that there will be some candidates put forward. Singapore would fit a profile similar to Korea in that it has indicated it will not seek special and differential treatment on current or future negotiations. Africa has not had a Director-General selected from among its candidates, and there has been only one Asian candidate selected previously.

What isn’t known is the willingness of the Members to streamline the nomination and selection process to permit a resolution while DG Azevedo is still active. If there are very few candidates, it may be easier for Members to agree to expedited procedures.

With the serious issues facing the world economy and the global trading system, maximum cooperation in selecting a new Director-General would be very important to helping focus a global response and updating of the WTO. Let’s hope that this is an issue on which the membership can agree to act quickly.

U.S. modifies its regulations to provide path for countervailing undervalued currencies in certain circumstances

· February 10, 2020 · Uncategorized · , , , , , , , · No Comments

On February 4, 2020, the Commerce Department’s modification of its countervailing duty (“CVD”) regulations was published in the Federal Register specifically to outline when Commerce would investigate allegations of subsidies on certain imported goods flowing from undervalued foreign currency achieved at least in part through government action. 85 Fed. Reg. 6031-6044. The modification to the U.S. CVD regulations “will apply to all segments of proceedings initiated on or after April 5, 2020”. The modification to the U.S. regulation is enclosed below.

85-FR-6031-2-4-2020-ITA-FR-final-rule-re-benefit-and-specificity-re-currency

The U.S. Department of Commerce International Trade Administration published its proposed modification of its regulations on May 28, 2019 (84 FR 24406) and received some forty-seven written comments on the proposal, including from some foreign governments (Brazil and India) and various business groups and law firms in China as well as from domestic parties (industries, workers, companies, law firms representing parties, trade associations, individuals) supporting or opposing or seeking modifications to the proposal.

Many domestic industries and their workers competing with imports believed to benefit from undervalued currencies had been seeking for years a modification to U.S. law to address what have been viewed over the years as periods of very active government interference in the market to achieve undervalued currencies by major trading partners. In recent years, China has been the main concern, but there have been ongoing concerns about past actions of the governments of Japan, Korea and others. Thus, the Commerce Department’s decision to develop modifications to its regulations has generally been viewed as a positive development by industries and workers who have competed with undervalued imported goods.

Article VI of the GATT, dealing with antidumping and countervailing duties, has had an Ad note to Paragraphs 2 and 3 which recognized that certain currency practices could be addressed by GATT Contracting Parties as either countervailable subsidies or as a form of dumping. Specifically, “2. Multiple currency practices can in certain circumstances constitute a subsidy to exports which may be met by countervailing duties under paragraph 3 or can constitute a form of dumping means of a partial depreciation of a country’s currency which may be met by action under paragraph 2. By ‘multiple currency practices’ is meant practices by governments or sanctioned by governments.” Article VI and the Ad notes remain part of the WTO.

While the multiple currency practices of the 1930s and 1940s are not the currency problems of the last thirty years, there is nothing in the WTO agreements that prohibits Members from addressing currency practices under the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (“ASCM”) where the terms of the Agreement are met. The Commerce Department modified regulations place certain undervalued currency situations within U.S. law which in turn reflects the U.S. understanding of its obligations under the ASCM.

The revisions modify the Commerce regulations on specificity and on benefit. 19 C.F.R. 351.502, dealing with specificity of domestic subsidies, is modified by adding a new subsection (c) which states that “In determining whether a subsidy is being provided to a ‘group’ of enterprises or industries within the meaning of section 771(5A)(D) of the Act, the Secretary will consider enterprises that buy or sell goods internationally to comprise such a group.” 85 FR at 6043.

A new section, 19 C.F.R. 351.528, is added to identify when exchanges of undervalued currencies will be viewed as countervailable. Commerce will examine whether there is a potentially actionable subsidy only where a country’s currency is undervalued during the relevant period. If that condition is met, Commerce will make an affirmative determination only where “there has been government action on the exchange rate that contributes to an undervaluation of the currency.” Government action will not generally include “monetary and related credit policy of an independent central bank or monetary authority”. Commerce may consider the foreign “government’s degree of transparency regarding actions that could alter the exchange rate.” 85 FR at 6043. This latter provision is presumably a reflection of the need for transparent actions by trading partners or the potential need to use adverse facts available where the actual actions of the foreign government can not be ascertained.

Finally, if there is currency undervaluation caused in part by government action, Commerce reviews how a benefit will be measured. Commerce will look to see if there is a difference between the nominal, bilateral United States dollar rate consistent with the equilibrium real effective exchange rate (REER) and the actual rate during the period of investigation or review. If yes, the benefit is the difference between the amount received by the foreign company and the amount that would have been received by the company if the currency had not been undervalued.

Commerce will seek input from the U.S. Department of Treasury on the questions of currency undervaluation, government action, and any difference between the equilibrium REER and the actual exchange rate. Treasury has expertise in exchange rate matters, but the determination of whether undervaluation constitutes a domestic subsidy is for Commerce to make. Information submitted by Treasury will be on the record and subject to comment and rebuttal by parties to the proceeding.

Part of the regulatory process in the United States includes the agency promulgating the regulations addressing issues raised by those who submit comments on the proposal. There were eleven categories of issues raised on the modifications to the CVD regulations. As the full Federal Register notice is available above, this note simply lists the range of issues addressed by Commerce in its final notice and encourages the reader to review the full Federal Register for the details of the Commerce Department comments on specific issues:

  1. Whether the CVD Law is an Appropriate Tool To Remedy Subsidies From Currency Undervaluation
  2. Statutory Authority to Promulgate This Rule
  3. Financial Contribution
  4. Determination of Undervaluation
  5. Government Action on the Exchange Rate
  6. Calculation of the Benefit
  7. Other Calculation Issues
  8. The Role of Treasury
  9. Specificity
  10. General Comments (Commerce’s Proposal Infringes on the IMF’s Authority, Possible Retaliation by U.S. Trading Partners, Other Methods To Combat Currency Manipulation/Misalignment May Be More Effective, Relationship to the Antidumping Law)
  11. Economic Impact

When Commerce published its proposal in May 2019, it noted that of the nineteen countries where the U.S. had one or more countervailing duty orders outstanding, twelve of the countries in 2017 were shown by either the IMF or by the Peterson Institute as having an undervalued currency (84 FR at 24411 n.13):

“13 In FY 2018, countervailing duties were deposited on various products imported from 19 countries. For 12 of these 19 countries, at least one of the two sources (IMF or Peterson Institute for International Economics) deemed
the domestic currency undervalued during 2017. Based on information from Customs and Border Protection, the total value of imports from these 12 countries with potentially undervalued currencies equaled roughly 32 percent of the total value of imports from all 19 countries.”

As reviewed, undervaluation is but the first step in any evaluation. Government action is another critical element and generally won’t cover monetary policy actions of governments. Nonetheless, using 2017 data, twelve countries had potentially undervalued currencies and hence could be subject of investigations or reviews to determine if the currency undervaluation constitutes a countervailable subsidy.

Conclusion

It is likely that 2020 will see one or more petitions or administrative reviews of existing orders where a petitioning party seeks to explore whether undervalued currencies constitute actionable subsidies under U.S. law. With Japan, Korea and China having changed the extent of government interference in their exchange rates in recent years, the first case or cases may go after other countries where government actions to depress currency value is identified by domestic industries or their workers. As is true in any area of new exploration, there are many unknowns that will presumably be answered as cases are brought and investigations or reviews conducted: whether Commerce will deem any such petitions or requests in administrative review to be sufficient to proceed on currency undervaluation; how the development of a record will proceed including provision of information from foreign governments whose practices are under investigation; how Treasury will proceed in providing information and its views and the extent of independent review by Commerce versus simple adoption of Treasury views — are just a few of the unknowns.

Trading partners may opt to challenge the modification in U.S. regulations as such at the WTO or may pursue as applied challenges should Commerce investigate their currency for undervaluation in a particular case. China has warned the U.S. that going after its currency would be problematic for any Phase 2 negotiations. The Director-General in response to a question about the new US regulations has opined that the WTO is not the right forum for currency issues (this despite the AD note to Article VI of the GATT).

But for domestic producers and their workers who face various forms of trade distortions through subsidies and/or dumping, the modification to U.S. countervailing duty regulations is a potentially important advance in permitting at least individual industries and their workers to obtain a more level trading field going forward.

U.S. Additional Tariffs on Imports of Steel and Aluminum “Derivative” Products — Presidential Proclamation 9980

· January 28, 2020 · Uncategorized · , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , · No Comments

The United States conducted two investigations under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, as modified, in 2017 with findings that imports of steel and aluminum products were a threat to U.S. national security. Import relief (25% on covered steel products and 10% on covered aluminum products) was imposed by mid-2018. Retaliation by many trading partners followed without resort to WTO dispute settlement. Dispute settlement cases were also filed by a number of countries. The U.S. also filed disputes against those countries who had retaliated without obtaining final reports or decisions from the WTO panels or Appellate Body and authorization if the U.S. did not comply with any loss that might have happened. All the disputes that are ongoing are at the panel stage at the WTO.

A number of countries agreed to other arrangements with the U.S. or were excluded from coverage. These included Argentina, Australia, Canada and Mexico for aluminum products and those countries plus Brazil and South Korea for steel products.

On January 24, 2020, President Trump issued a Presidential Proclamation “on Adjusting Imports of Derivative Aluminum Articles and Derivative Steel Articles into the United States”. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/proclamation-adjusting-imports-derivative-aluminum-articles-derivative-steel-articles-united-states/. The Proclamation (No. 9980) will be published in the Federal Register on January 29, 2020 and will apply to imports from subject countries beginning on February 8 (25% on steel derivative products and 10% on aluminum derivative products listed in Annexes II and I respectively). The inspection version of the Federal Register for January 29 is available today and the document is attached below. In the Proclamation, the President lays out the history of the 232 investigations and actions previously taken as well as the President’s intention to have Commerce monitor developments in case other actions were warranted. The action laid out in Proclamation 9980 is responsive to information reportedly provided by Commerce of possible evasion/circumvention of the duties. Countries who are excluded or who have arrangements with the U.S. on the original 232 actions are also excluded subject to certain conditions being present suggesting a need to address imports from those countries as well.

1-29-2020-FR-of-presidential-proclamation-on-steel-and-aluminum-derivatives

The purpose of this note is not to review the legal basis for the U.S. action (there have been a number of judicial actions in the United States challenging various aspects of the steel and aluminum national security case), but rather to examine the U.S. trade data to understand the breadth of the term “derivatives” and which countries appear to be the main targets of the additional duties.

Prior Proclamations Sought Review by Commerce and Others of Developments in Case Additional Action Was Deemed Necessary

The President in Proclamation 9980 references the fact that the Secretary of Commerce was directed to monitor imports of aluminum and steel and identify any circumstances which might warrant additional action. For example, paragraph 5(b) of the Steel Proclamation (No. 9705) of March 8, 2018 contained the following language:

“(b)  The Secretary shall continue to monitor imports of steel articles and shall, from time to time, in consultation with the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Defense, the USTR, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and such other senior Executive Branch officials as the Secretary deems appropriate, review the status of such imports with respect to the national security.  The Secretary shall inform the President of any circumstances that in the Secretary’s opinion might indicate the need for further action by the President under section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, as amended.  The Secretary shall also inform the President of any circumstance that in the Secretary’s opinion might indicate that the increase in duty rate provided for in this proclamation is no longer necessary.”

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/presidential-proclamation-adjusting-imports-steel-united-states/.

Similar language was in the aluminum proclamation.

How Broad is the Term Derivative Aluminum or Derivative Steel Product?

The aim of the Proclamation is to deal with products that undermine the purpose of the earlier proclamations. Proclamation 9980 reviews (paragraph 6) how the term “derivative” is used for purposes of the proclamation:

“For purposes of this proclamation, the Secretary determined that an article is ‘derivative’ of an aluminum article or steel article if all of the following conditions are present: (a) the aluminum article or steel article represents,
on average, two-thirds or more of the total cost of materials of the derivative article; (b) import volumes of such derivative article increased year-to-year since June 1, 2018, following the imposition of the tariffs in Proclamation 9704 and Proclamation 9705, as amended by Proclamation 9739 and Proclamation 9740, respectively, in comparison to import volumes of such derivative article during the 2 preceding years; and (c) import volumes of such derivative article following the imposition of the tariffs
exceeded the 4 percent average increase in the total volume of goods imported into the United States during the same period since June 1, 2018.”

What is the Volume of Imports Covered and Which are the Major Exporting Countries?

When one looks at the products that are covered by the two Annexes, one will see relatively few tariff categories covered by the new Proclamation. There are two HS categories that contain products that may be either steel or aluminum – bumper stampings and body stampings. There are significant imports of bumper stampings (though the data are not broken between steel, aluminum and other material). Imports from all counttries of bumper stampings in the first eleven months of 2019 were $394.3 million (of which $199.6 million are from countries not excluded for aluminum; $198.4 million if steel). Body stamps were significantly smaller, $5.2 million from all countries in Jan.-Nov. 2019 ($2.4 million covered if all are aluminum; $2.3 million covered if all are steel). The 8708 categories may have met the Commerce criteria but show a decline in 2019 vs. 2018 of 8.63% for the covered products/countries.

The other aluminum products identified — stranded wire, cables, plaited bands and the like (HS 7614.10.50, 7614.90.20, 7614.90.40, 7614.90.50) are relatively small in value – $43 million for all countries in 2019 (11 months)($26.9 million for countries subject to the additional 10% duties). The products/countries covered increased over the first 11 months of 2018 by 41.45%.

The other steel products identified – nails, tacks (other than thumb tacks), drawing pins, corrugated nails, staples and similar articles (HTS 7317.00.30.00, 7317.00.5503, 7317.005505, 7317.00.5507, 7317.00.5560, 7317.00.5580, 7317.00.6560) were $331.8 million in the first eleven months of 2019 for all countries ($276.9 million for countries covered by the new 25% duty). However, the rate of increase for covered products/countries was only 7.03% in 2019 versus 2018 (but had large increases vs. 2016 and 2017).

Countries with large exports in 2019 of the aluminum products (other than bumpers and body stampings) include Turkey at $7.4 million, India at $7 million, China at $5.0 million, Indonesia at $1.6 million, Italy at $1.35 million.

Countries with large exports in 2019 of the steel derivative products (other than bumpers and body stampings) include Oman at $59.5 million, Taiwan at $31 million, Turkey at $28.4 million, Thailand at $26.0 million, India at $25.3 million, Sri Lanka at $22.2 million, China at $20.4 million, Liechtenstein at $13.0 million, Malaysia at $12.5 million, Austria at $9.9 million and Saudi Arabia at $9.4 million.

On bumpers and body stampings, a number of the excluded countries are major suppliers — imports from Canada were $151.9 million in the first eleven months of 2019. Imports from Mexico were $44.6 million. For countries facing higher tariffs of 10% or 25% depending on whether the exported bumper stamping or body stamping is steel or aluminum, some of the large suppliers in 2019 were Taiwan at $87.4 million, Japan at $41.4 million, China at $39.4 million, Germany at $12.1 million, South Africa at $4.5 million, Italy at $3.8 million and Thailand at $3.6 million.

Conclusion

While any import measure by the President should be periodically reviewed for effectiveness and the need to maintain, the current action by the President in essence is a minor tweak with only $504 million of imports covered by the modified coverage of the Section 232 Proclamations — likely less than 1% of imports of steel and aluminum covered by the original proclamations.

It is true that the domestic steel and aluminum industries are not operating at the levels viewed as optimal and the problem of massive excess capacity in China and other countries is little changed in fact. But if a revision were needed, the level of ambition reflected in the Proclamation seems inadequate to the task.

So perhaps the way to read the proclamation is a recognition by the Administration that the existing relief hasn’t achieved the full measure of relief intended and to give trading partners warning that more is possible if the underlying problems aren’t addressed.

The Proclamation will certainly engender more disputes and increased tension with many of our trading partners. It is hard to understand the calculus (divorced from 2020 election posturing) of taking such a modest step, but time will tell if this is simply a prelude to a larger action in the coming months.

WTO Dispute Settlement – January 24, 2020 Statement by Ministers at Davos, Switzerland on Interim Appeal Arrangement Amongst Certain Major Countries

· January 25, 2020 · Uncategorized · , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , · No Comments

The WTO’s Appellate Body has not been in a position to handle any appeals from panel reports where the appeal was filed after December 10, 2019 and is processing some but not all of the appeals that were pending on that date. This situation flows from the existence of just one of seven Appellate Body slots currently being filled and the Dispute Settlement Understanding (“DSU”)requirement that appeals be heard by three members of the Appellate Body. The slots are unfilled as the United States has blocked the start of the process over the last two years while pressing WTO Members to acknowledge longstanding problems in how disputes are handled and to come up with effective reforms. For the United States, this requires WTO Members to come to grips with why clear requirements of the DSU were being ignored or violated by the Appellate Body.

For most members of the WTO, achieving a resolution of the dispute settlement impasse is a high priority with many countries looking to see if some form of interim approach could be adopted by those with an interest in having an interim process for a second tier review of panel reports by participating members. The European Union had announced bilateral arrangements with Canada and with Norway in 2019 and discussions have occurred with and among other countries about whether arbitration-type arrangements based on Article 25 of the DSU should be agreed to during the period when a solution to the impasse is pursued.

Earlier this week on the sidelines of the annual World Economic Forum, ministers from a number of WTO Members issued a statement indicating that a large number of WTO Members would work towards contingency measures. The statement was on behalf of seventeen WTO Members (46 Members if the EU’s 28 member countries are counted instead of the EU). The list includes a number of large trading nations including the EU, China, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Australia and Korea along with ten others (Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Singapore, Sitzerland and Uruguay. The joint statement follows:

“Statement by Ministers, Davos, Switzerland, 24 January 2020
“’We, the Ministers of Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, European Union, Guatemala, Republic of Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Singapore, Switzerland, Uruguay, remain committed to work with the whole WTO membership to find a lasting improvement to the situation relating to the WTO Appellate Body. We believe that a functioning dispute settlement system of the WTO is of the utmost importance for a rules-based trading system, and that an independent and impartial appeal stage must continue to be one of its essential features.

“Meanwhile, we will work towards putting in place contingency measures that would allow for appeals of WTO panel reports in disputes among ourselves, in the form of a multi-party interim appeal arrangement based on Article 25 of the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding, and which would be in place only and until a reformed WTO Appellate Body becomes fully operational. This arrangement will be open to any WTO Member willing to join it.

“We have instructed our officials to expeditiously finalise work on such an arrangement.

We have also taken proper note of the recent engagement of President Trump on WTO reform.’”

https://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2020/january/tradoc_158596.pdf

Since Australia and Brazil had been looking at a different approach than that announced by the EU and Canada or the EU and Norway, it will be interesting to see what type of contingency measures the larger group agrees upon. The U.S. had significant problems with the EU approach when it was announced last year as it simply continued many of the problems that the U.S. has identified as needing correction. A similar approach by the larger group would likely add complications to finding a permanent solution and also likely discourage at least some other WTO Members from joining the group’s approach.

Likely Coverage of Disputes by the 17 WTO Members

There are 164 WTO Members at the present time and there have been a total of 593 requests for consultations filed by WTO Members since the WTO came into existence in January 1995. The WTO webpage lists all disputes where a Member has been the complainant, the respondent or acted as a third party. Not all requests for consultations result in panels being requested, and not all panel proceedings result in appeals being filed. But a review of number of requests for consultations filed by a Member and the number of such requests where a Member was the respondent helps understand the coverage likely from the seventeen Members (46 at individual country level) who released the joint statement.

However, the data from the WTO webpage needs to be modified to eliminate requests for consultations where one party was not one of the seventeen Members. The following table reviews the data and then corrects to eliminate cases where the complainant or respondent was not another of the seventeen Members.

WTO Member# of cases complainant # of cases respondentcomplainant among 17respondent among 17
Australia91644
Brazil3316117
Canada40231811
China2144519
Chile101346
Colombia5735
European Union10486*/1123323*/49
Guatemala10272
Korea211847
Mexico2515118
New Zealand9030
Norway5030
Panama7161
Singapore1010
Switzerland5020
Uruguay1111
Subtotal306242/26811694/120
All countries593593593593

NOTE: EU numbers as a respondent differ based on whether include cases where EU is listed or just one or more of the EU member states (26 individual member disputes).

While the seventeen Members are obviously important WTO trading nations and participants in the dispute settlement system, the percent of disputes where the seventeen members are engaged in disputes with each other is obviously much smaller than their total number of disputes. Thus, the seventeen members accounted for 51.6% of the requests for consultations filed in the first twenty-five years and were respondents in 45.2% of the requests for consultations. However, when disputes with any of the 118 WTO Members who are not part of the joint statement are removed, the seventeen Members accounted for 19.56% of the cases where one was a complainant and 20.2% of the cases where one was a respondent. This is not surprising as there are many important trading nations who are not part of the seventeen signatories who are active both as complainants and as respondents – United States, Japan, India, South Africa, Argentina to name just five.

Of course, WTO Members do not have to be part of a group interim arrangement to handle ongoing or new disputes. Members can agree not to take an appeal, can agree (as the U.S. and India have done in one case) to hold up appeal until the Appellate Body is back functioning, to name two approaches some are pursuing.

While an interim approach is obviously of interest to many, the core issue remains finding a road forward to address needed reforms to the dispute settlement system. There seems to be little progress on that front. Procedural issues appear easier to resolve if consequences are added for deviation from procedural requirements. However, there is little active consideration of how to address the problem of overreach both prospectively and retroactively to permit a restoration of rights and obligations where panel reports or Appellate Body decisions created obligations or rights not contained in the Agreements.

In a Member driven organization, the hard work of the Secretariat doesn’t overcome fundamentally different views of how the dispute settlement system is supposed to operate. Thus, while it is a positive development that Director-General Azevedo and his team will visit Washington in the near future to discuss U.S. reform ideas, the real challenge is getting agreement on what the system is supposed to be and how to restore the balance that existed when the WTO commenced in 1995.

With the WTO Appellate Body Becoming Dysfunctional on December 11, What Happens to Pending Appeals and Other Open Issues?

· November 24, 2019 · Uncategorized, WTO Dispute Settlement · , , , , , , , , , , , , , · No Comments

There was another WTO Dispute Settlement Body (“DSB”) meeting on November 22, 2019. In addition to the normal agenda item of receiving reports and comments by other members on the status of implementation of recommendations on disputes where reports had previously been adopted by the DSB, there were a number of other agenda items, one of which was not addressed.

First, the United States had put on the agenda making a statement on what it considers systemic concerns on the compensation for Appellate Body.

Second, annually each body within the WTO prepared a report on activity during the year. Adoption of the 2019 draft annual report of the DSB was an agenda item for consideration.

Third, the topic of Appellate Body appointments was an agenda item based on the September 2019 proposal from 117 WTO members.

Finally, there was an agenda item entitled “Pending Appeals” which was meant to permit an examination of how the 13 pending appeals would be handled after December 10 when the number of current Appellate Body members would decline to 1 from 3.

This note looks at several of the agenda items with a focus towards the end on the thirteen appeals which are proceeding at the present time.

I. Compensation for Appellate Body members

As reviewed in a post from November 16, the United States had raised a series of questions on the handling of funds for the Appellate Body and its Secretariat (among other issues) and held up adoption of the 2020/2021 WTO budget at a November 12 meeting of the Committee on the Budget, Finance and Administration. Another meeting of the Committee has been scheduled for November 27, with efforts to provide answers and resolve concerns ahead of that meeting.

At the same time, the U.S. added the agenda item to provide its thoughts on “systemic issues” flowing from the Appellate Body compensation system. The comments on this agenda item were made by Ambassador Dennis Shea and laid out the various elements of the compensation package, the part time nature of the work of Appellate Body members, and the fact that compensation has been paid to individuals whose terms have expired but who continue to handle appeals. See pages 9-12 of Statements b the United States at the Meeting of the WTO Dispute Settlement Body, Geneva, November 22, 2019, https://geneva.usmission.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/290/Nov22.DSB_.Stmt_.as-handed-out.fin_.public.pdf. U.S. concerns revolved around: (1) the total compensation (some 300,000 Swiss Francs tax free for part time work which is higher than compensation for Deputy Director Generals at the WTO whose work is full time; (2) whether the daily component of compensation contributed to delay in completing Appellate Body decisions, hence undermining prompt resolution of disputes; (3) lack of transparency on expenses; and (4) pay to former members who are continued after terms expire when working on appeals which they started prior to term expiration.

Press reports from the day of the DSB meeting indicated relatively little interest/sympathy by other trading partners on the U.S. concerns including on the size of the compensation. See, e.g., Inside U.S. Trade’s World Trade Online, U.S. Questions WTO Appellate Body compensation as others lament impending paralysis, https://insidetrade.com/daily-news/us-questions-wto-appellate-body-compensation-others-lament-impending-paralysis.

From the earlier U.S. statement of concerns on how to remedy the Appellate Body disregard of clear requirements under the Dispute Settlement Understanding, the U.S. statement provides a potential “why” answer to part of the disregard. Failing to meet the required 60-90 day deadline for appeals results in longer work on any given appeal and hence higher compensation, potentially encouraging longer decisions, coverage of additional issues, etc. and making timely delivery of AB decisions more difficult.

Should the U.S. insist that the AB compensation system be reviewed and potentially modified before agreeing to opening the Appellate Body nomination process, obviously a protracted and difficult process will become more complicated and presumably more drawn out.

II. Appellate Body Proposal to Start the Appointment Process

Not surprisingly, the same proposal to start the process of finding new Appellate Body members that had been presented in October by Mexico and 116 other WTO members was resubmitted for consideration at the November 22 DSB meeting. Once again the U.S. found itself unable to agree to moving ahead with the process for finding six Appellate Body members to fill the existing vacancies and the two that will occur when existing terms expire on December 10. So there is actually nothing new on this agenda item or the outcome at the recent DSB meeting.

Ambassador David Walker’s draft General Council Decision which is an effort to present a possible road forward to addressing U.S. concerns was not taken up within the DSB (other than a review of the effort at resolution contained in the draft annual report of the DSB) but will be on the agenda for the December 9-11 General Council meeting. As reviewed in an earlier post, the U.S. has already rejected the draft General Council Decision as not meeting its concerns. Thus, the General Council meeting in December is not likely to provide a breakthrough on the current impasse. So an obvious question is what happens on December 11?

The panel process of dispute settlement will continue as before. Thus, for the many cases proceeding through panel deliberations, one can expect those panels to continue without interruption. WTO Members have the option of agreeing to arbitration under Article 25 of the DSU, as the EU has done with Canada and with Norway. Similarly, WTO Members can agree not to take an appeal in a given dispute such that the panel report would be what is adopted absent a negative consensus. It is understood that some WTO members are considering this or have agreed to this approach. Thus, December 11 marks not the collapse of the dispute settlement system in its entirety, but rather a need to evaluate options for WTO members as they look at pending or future disputes or face a process where there is no automatic adoption.

A large number of WTO Members have participated in at least one dispute in the first 25 years of the WTO. Other WTO members, who have not been a complainant or a respondent have participated as a third party in one or more cases. While that is true, the number of cases where a Member is either a complainant or a respondent is very small for nearly all countries. The attached table looks at information from the WTO Dispute Settlement listing (looked at on November 22, but not reflecting the EU request for consultations filed against Indonesia on November 22). Six Members (U.S. (11.16/yr), EU and member states (9.44/yr), China (3.61/yr), Canada (2.52/yr), Russian Federation (2.42/year), and India (2.24/yr)) have seen two or more disputes filed each year of membership. Eight others have between one and two disputes each year (Brazil, Argentina, Japan, Mexico, Korea, Ukraine, Australia, and Indonesia). Everyone else (121 members) have less than one dispute per year including 81 who have never either filed a dispute or been a respondent in a dispute in the first twenty-five years of the WTO and 46 of whom have also never been a third party in a dispute.

WTO-Member

The EU’s agreements with Canada and Norway are important for Canada and Norway but relatively minor for the EU itself, other than creating what they hope will be an approach that other trading partners of theirs will agree to. For Canada, 23.81% of the disputes where Canada has been a complainant or respondent have been where the EU was the other party. For Norway, 3 of 5 cases they have been involved in have been with the EU (60%). However, for the EU, Canada and Norway represent less than 6% of the disputes in which they have been a party.

So how disruptive the reduction in Appellate Body membership to one member as of December 11, 2019 will be is uncertain and will depend on actions by a number of major players in terms of ongoing disputes..

III. Pending Appeals Before the Appellate Body

Agenda item 7 on the November 22, 2019 DSB meeting was “Pending Appeals. A. Statement by the Chairman.” WTO/AIR/DSB/89.

In the Dispute Settlement Body’s draft Annual Report (2019), the following brief discussion appears on what the Chair of the DSB was doing on the issue of pending appeals. WT/DSB/W/651 (8 November 2019) at 4:

” Finally, he said that he would be consulting with delegations who had pending appeals before the Appellate Body ahead of 10 December 2019 to see how to deal with those appeals. He said that he would revert to this matter at the November DSB meeting (WT/DSB/M/436).”

While the WTO does not have a summary of the November 22nd DSB meeting up on its webcite as of 11/24 2:30 p.m. (ET), a press article from the 22nd indicated that the agenda item wasn’t pursued as the Chair had not found agreement on how to deal with the 13 pending appeals. The U.S. was apparently the holdout in reaching agreement on how to proceed. Inside U.S. Trade’s World Trade Online, U.S. Questions WTO Appellate Body compensation as others lament impending paralysis, https://insidetrade.com/daily-news/us-questions-wto-appellate-body-compensation-others-lament-impending-paralysis.

In looking at the thirteen appeals that are understood to be underway and the relevant DSU articles on Appellate Body practice rules, there appear to be a number of potential issues that will need to be addressable if the issues are in fact present and the appeals are to proceed.

First, eight of the thirteen appeals were noticed by the appellant after 30 September 2018 the last day of Mr. Shree Baboo Chekitan Servansing’s four year term. See DS541, DS534, DS523, DS518, DS513, DS510, DS461, DS371. After that date, there have been only three Appellate Body members, all of whom would have to be hearing the appeal and no substitute would be possible if one of the two members whose terms end on December 10, 2019 decided not to continue on an appeal after that date. See DSU Art. 17.1; Working Procedures for Appellate Review, WT/AB/WP/6 16 August 2010, Rules 6.(3) and 12 and 13. It is understood that one of the two Appellate Body members whose second term expires on December 10 has indicated an unwillingness to continue to serve on the appeals after the expiration of his term. If correct, absent a decision by the DSB on how those appeals can proceed, the appeals will presumably terminate or be in a state of limbo pending restoration of the membership of the Appellate Body. The United States is a party in four of the eight cases.

Of the other five appeals, it is unclear if a similar situation exists in terms of the composition of the Division hearing the appeal (DSU Art. 17.1 has appeals heard on a rotation basis) and if so, if the remaining AB member would be available to maintain the appeal at three members (two former members and the remaining current member).

For all thirteen appeals, after December 10, 2019, the appeals could only be handled in two or all three of the people hearing the appeal were individuals whose terms expired, hence falling into the space that the U.S. has reviewed as to the lack of authority for the Appellate Body have non-AB members complete appeals that were started when they were members. The U.S. is a party in five of the thirteen pending appeals.

Expect that the DSB Chair David Walker will continue to search for an approach that is acceptable to all members. Don’t be surprised if no consensus is reached. Two known events in December are possible situations where better understanding of the issues will surface: the December 9-11 General Council and the December 18 DSB meeting.

Below is a reverse chronological listing of the thirteen pending appeals:

DS541, India-Export Related Measures (U.S. complainant); notice of appeal, Nov. 19, 2019.

DS534, United States – Anti-Dumping Measures Applying Differential Pricing Methodology to Softwood Lumber from Canada; notice of appeal, June 4, 2019.

DS523, United States – Countervailing Measures on Certain Pipe and Tube Products (Turkey complainant); notice of appeal, Jan. 25, 2019.

DS518, India – Certain Measures on Imports of Iron and Steel Products (Japan complainant); notice of appeal, Dec. 14, 2018.

DS513, Morocco – Anti-Dumping Measures on Certain Hot-Rolled Steel from Turkey; notice of appeal, November 20, 2018

DS510, United States – Certain Measures Relating to the Renewable Energy Sector (India complainant); notice of appeal, August 15, 2019.

DS505, United States – Countervailing Measures on Supercalendered Paper from Canada; notice of appeal, August 27, 2018.

DS499, Russian Federation – Measures Affecting the Importation of Railway Equipment and Parts Thereof (Ukraine complainant); notice of appeal, August 27, 2018.

DS476, European Union – Certain Measures Relating to the Energy Sector (Russian Federation complainant); notice of appeal, September 21, 2018 [The WTO webpage shows this dispute still being on appeal before the Appellate Body, but the case is not included in the list of 13 pending appeals on the WTO webpage] .

DS441, Australia – Certain Measures Concerning Trademarks, Geographical Indicators and Other Plain Packaging Requirements Applicable to Tobacco Products (Dominican Republic complainant); notice of appeal, August 23, 2018.

DS435, Australia – Certain Measures Concerning Trademarks, Geographical Indicators and Other Plain Packaging Requirements Applicable to Tobacco Products (Honduars complainant); notice of appeal, July 19, 2018.

DS461, Colombia – Measures Relating to the Importation of Textiles, Apparel and Footwear (21.5, Panama complainant); notice of appeal, November 20, 2018.

DS371, Thailand – Custom and Fiscal Measures on Cigarettes from the Philippines; notice of appeal (2nd recourse to 21.5), September 9, 2019; notice appeal (1st recourse to 21.5), 9 January, 2019).

IV. Conclusion

WTO Members are continuing to look for alternatives to the present appeal process as they await further developments both at the General Council and the Dispute Settlement Body. The U.S. has been looking for adherence to the original DSU commitments and is unwilling to accept simple reaffirmation of those principles in light of the longstanding problems flagged by the United States. The core disagreement on the purpose of the dispute settlement system between the U.S. and the EU (and like minded Members) has made meaningful progress difficult.

What is certain is that the brave new world of a more complicated dispute settlement system within the WTO arrives in less than three weeks. How long the changed status will continue is unclear. Current indications are the wait will be long in fact before the Appellate Body is back functioning with the concerns of the U.S. at last addressed in an enforceable manner. For the U.S. a major concern should be achieving a restoration of the rights and obligations that were agreed to through negotiation and that have been lost through overreach actions by the Appellate Body.

The October 28, 2019 WTO Dispute Settlement Body Meeting – Another Systemic Problem Flagged by the United States

· November 1, 2019 · Uncategorized · , , , , , · No Comments

The United States has been raising concerns for many years on a range of issues with the operation of the dispute settlement system, particularly actions by the Appellate Body.  Time has run out to prevent some hiatus in the functioning of the Appellate Body after December 10 when the current membership of the Appellate Body goes from three to one with vacancies going from four to six of the seven member body.  There is a requirement within the Dispute Settlement Understanding to have three Appellate Body members handle any appeal from a panel report.  The likely process for finding replacements for Appellate Body vacancies, once authorized (see, e.g., WT/DSB/W/609 and revisions 1-14) will take a number of months.  With the continued impasse within the Dispute Settlement Body (“DSB”) as recently as the last DSB meeting on October 28, WTO members now certainly face a gap for appeals from panel decisions issued around or after December 10.  A few WTO members have formalized agreements among themselves for procedures to handle resolution of disputes for such time as the Appellate Body lacks adequate membership to conduct appeals relying on the authority for members to resolve disputes through arbitration.  The European Union and Norway have signed an agreement similar to the one that the EU and Canada had submitted previously (see post of Oct. 9).

Of interest in the press release on the October 28 DSB meeting from the WTO, was the issue raised by the United States on the problems posed by the Appellate Body’s past interpretation of Article 6.2 of the Dispute Settlement Understanding (“DSU”).  Article 6 of the DSU reads as follows:

“Article 6: Establishment of Panels

“1.     If the complaining party so requests, a panel shall be established at the latest at the DSB meeting following that at which the request first appears as an item on the DSB’s agenda, unless at that meeting the DSB decides by consensus not to establish a panel.

“2.     The request for the establishment of a panel shall be made in writing.  It shall indicate whether consultations were held, identify the specific measures at issue and provide a brief summary of the legal basis of the complaint sufficient to present the problem clearly.  In case the applicant requests the establishment of a panel with other than standard terms of reference, the written request shall include the proposed text of special terms of reference.”

The WTO press release on the DSB meeting indicated that the U.S. had claimed that the Appellate Body (“AB”) had “adopted an erroneous interpretation of Article 6.2 in past rulings which required a member to explain ‘how or why’ the measure at issue is considered to be violating WTO rules, a requirement that does not appear in the DSU text.”  The result of the AB interpretation was more complicated  disputes with a large number of procedural challenges which both increased the time to complete disputes and the uncertainty for parties.  https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news10_e/dsb_28oct19_e.htm. 

One of the cases before the DSB on October 28 was a dispute brought by Japan against Korea (DS504, antidumping duties on pneumatic valves from Japan).  Korea had challenged whether Japan had satisfied the “who or why” construction identified in prior Appellate Body decisions.  The panel found a number of Japan’s claims to be outside the panel’s terms of reference.  While the Appellate Body in the particular dispute disagreed with the panel, the issues that had been found outside of the panel’s terms of reference were not capable of decision based on the record.  The United States used the pneumatic valve case and the interpretation of Article 6.2 as another example of the problems that have been created in the dispute settlement system by the Appellate Body not limiting itself to actual text of the DSU.

Japan agreed with the United States that the “how or why” requirement for panel requests was inconsistent with Art. 6.2.  Canada took a different view, agreeing that at a minimum the specific WTO provisions alleged to be infringed needed to be identified  “although there may be cases where just citing the provisions does not cover the requirements of the DSU; ultimately a judgment must be made on a case by case basis.”  Id.

As the WTO struggles to achieve agreement on the future of the dispute settlement system, the different perspectives on the correct interpretation of Article 6.2 of the DSU show the challenges that are faced to restore a fully functioning dispute settlement system at the WTO.  Moreover, when the Appellate Body adds obligations to Members’ ability to bring disputes, the AB contributes to the delay in achieving final resolution of disputes, making it more likely timelines for appeals will not be respected.

U.S. Statement at the DSB Meeting Provides More Detail

The U.S. statement at the October 28 DSB meeting on the issue of Article 6.2’s proper interpretation was 4 1/3 pages in length (pages 10-14.  https://geneva.usmission.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/290/Oct28.DSB_.Stmt_.as-deliv.fin_.public.pdf). (“U.S. Statement”).

The U.S. identifies AB decisions that imposed the requirement on a complaining Member “to explain ‘how or why the measure at issue is considered by the complaining Member to be violating the WTO obligation in question.’”  Id. at 10 (referencing three AB decisions in footnote 2, EC -Selected Customs Matters, para. 130; China – Raw Materials, para. 226; US – Countervailing Measures (China), para. 4.9).  The consequences for Members can be significant, as issues plainly sought to be challenged are rejected as not properly before the panel and complaining parties face procedural issues resulting in delay and increased costs.  The U.S. noted that sixteen challenges had been brought by defending Members under Article 6.2’s construction put forward in earlier AB decisions. Indeed, “Over the past two years, over 30% of panel reports addressed Article 6.2 and the Appellate Body’s incorrect element of ‘how or why’.”  U.S. Statement at 12.  Defending parties seek to strike claims where the complaining party has not provided the basic arguments (the how or why) the complainant will be making in its later submissions.

To the extent that panels reject claims as not covered by the terms of reference, the complaining party is denied the opportunity to have its concerns examined.  Early termination of challenges to issues can result in truncated records before the panel, limiting what can be achieved through an appeal but also extending the time for final resolution (and to the extent rejection of claims are appealed) contributing to the inability of the AB to complete appeals within 90 days.

The U.S. also reviewed the history of the language in Article 6.2 of the DSU that had been interpreted by the AB as requiring an articulation of how or why the measure in dispute violated WTO obligations.  The language had been adopted in Montreal at the mid-term Uruguay Round meeting as part of improvements to the GATT dispute settlement rules (id. at footnote 8 citing GATT, Improvements to the GATT Dispute Settlement Rules and Procedures, Decision of 12 April 1989, L/6489, 13 April 1989, Section F(a)), and had never been construed to require a showing of “how” or “why” until the Appellate Body came up with that construction.  The first case cited in footnote 2 in the U.S. Statement (EC – Selected Customs Matters) was an Appellate Body decision issued in 2006.

While the apparent (at least partial) movement away from the “how or why” requirement in the recent Japan-Korea dispute by the Appellate Body decision is welcome, the continued confusion on what is required for a complaining party to have its issues considered  by a panel will both continue to challenge future panels and will complicate the ability to have a dispute settlement system that is operated to ensure it conforms to agreed rules by sovereign states – stated differently, permits the system to function as envisioned when created in the Uruguay Round.