By Samisoni Pareti
For Pacific island members of the World Trade Organisation, the cancellation of the WTO’s 12th Ministerial Conference in late November due to the spread of the Omicron variant was God-sent.
Given the way the text of the proposed agreement on banning fishery subsidies was being pushed before the ministerial that was to be held at the WTO headquarters in Geneva from 30 November to 3 December, there was little enthusiasm on the parts of Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu to sign on the dotted line.
The general consensus was that the text as it stands, was heavily slanted in favour of the rich and wealthier nations, including the so-called Distant Water Fishing Nations (DWFNs), the very countries that the proposed WTO agreement was supposed to control through their heavily subsidised fishing fleets.
The text has undergone little change from the one Fiji rejected during a WTO Ministerial last July, when it said a “one size fits all” approach would not work, and that the text was weighted against the development of small-scale fisheries in the Pacific.
Such a text, Fiji’s trade minister Faiyaz Koya said then, would permanently prevent Pacific island nations from sustainably developing their own resources by rewarding existing DWFNs fleets that grew on the back of billions of dollars of subsidies.
“Fiji believes that the revised text does not have all the ingredients to conclude the Agreement. Fiji is not satisfied with the current chair’s text. Whilst we welcome a few positive changes in the revised text, significant imbalances remain.
“The final agreement must require prompt and significant reductions in the level of subsidies provided by the largest subsidisers. Fiji entered negotiations for an agreement to reduce subsidies, not one that will micro-regulate our fisheries management and leave the bulk of subsidies in place,” added Minister Koya.
“We in the Pacific, have unique interests and challenges, and fish and fisheries are very important to us. Therefore, Fiji will only endorse an agreement that focuses on the sustainable development, and the protection and preservation of the fisheries resources, in a manner consistent with our own development needs.”
A week before WTO announced the cancellation of its 30 November ministerial in Geneva, a consortium of global and national based non-governmental organisations had called on the world trade body to call the meeting off.
The group had wanted the WTO to agree first to a proposed waiver for COVID-related intellectual property rights under the WTO’s Agreement on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), which they said would ensure access to treatments, diagnostics and vaccines for all countries, especially for poor and developing nations.
“COVID-19 has exposed the WTO’s systemic priority of profits over people through the monopolies that are guaranteed to Big Pharma under TRIPS,” said the NGO coalition.
“To proceed under these circumstances would further erode the WTO’s legitimacy, and undermine the credibility of the new Director-General, at a time when the Organisation’s credibility is already at an all time low. The letter therefore calls on Members to postpone the ministerial conference and direct all efforts to reaching an urgent agreement on the TRIPS waiver.”
The NGO coalition was also unimpressed with New Zealand’s role in the now referenced “Walker process,” where the New Zealand representative to the WTO, Ambassador David Walker offered a way out. Civil society labelled that proposal as a “sham” and “deplorable.”
“Walker’s text also calls on WTO Members to establish a “Work Plan on Pandemic Preparedness and Resilience.” However, the main intent of this work-plan appears to be to “push the liberalisation and deregulatory interests of developed countries and undermine existing mandates” within the WTO.
“Notably, the Walker process specifically excludes discussion on the most important topic: the TRIPS waiver. The [NGO] calls on WTO members to immediately agree to the TRIPS waiver as proposed.
“The “reality is that the Walker process is a deplorable attempt by the WTO to cover up what should be a grave humiliation: its inability to agree to remove key obstacles to resolving the COVID-19 pandemic by waiving intellectual property barriers as per the TRIPS waiver proposal. Millions of people have died because of the WTO’s vaccine apartheid and inequitable access.”
A member of the international NGO coalition, the Fiji-based Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG) identified 11 problematic clauses in its analysis of the text of the proposed WTO agreement on fishery subsidies, and has offered 19 recommendations.
“The revised Chair’s text fails to address the imbalances of previous texts or target those subsidisers most responsible for the global state of fish stocks. The flexibilities for big subsidisers continue with a permanent carve-out offered under the exemption of Article 5.1.1,” said the PANG’s analysis.
“The text currently undermines other existing international agreements like the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) that enshrine the rights and responsibilities of Members in their exclusive economic zones.
“Developing countries and LDCs are most disadvantaged with the undermining of UNCLOS as it not only reduces their sovereignty, but it places the burden on those countries who still retain the majority of fisheries resources to disproportionately carry the commitments of the agreement,” added the PANG document.
Minister Koya of Fiji was blunter when he told the WTO last July that he wanted the text to recognise and provide ‘Special and Differential Treatment’ (SDT) to developing nations like Fiji.
“Attempts to reduce SDT to time bound and territorial sea bound carve-outs is simply unacceptable for us. In short, the current approach penalises us for never having been major subsidies.
“It is equally outrageous that access to SDT should be conditioned on small island developing states fulfilling onerous reporting requirements on non-subsidy matters. The WTO is not a fisheries management organisation,” he concluded.
