It is equally clear where the responsibility for this failure lies. The rich countries of the industrialised world have reneged on their promise that this round of trade talks would somehow be different from previous ones, in that it would place the development needs of poor countries above the business interests of corporate lobby groups in the North. Instead the EU and USA have made ever more extreme demands on developing countries to open up their industrial, manufacturing and services sectors to multinational corporations, while refusing to implement any meaningful reform of their own agricultural regimes. As a result there is no ‘deal’ on the table at Hong Kong – only the same false bargain agreed to in the Uruguay Round and regretted ever since.
Buying off the opposition
In order to mask this reality, talk has now shifted away from a 'development round' towards a 'development package' for least developed countries at Hong Kong. While blocking any pro-development outcome in the main negotiations, the EU has proposed instead an 'aid for trade' package along with the prospect of increased access for LDC exports to the markets of the developed world. This proposal has been taken over into the draft ministerial text and is now being trumpeted as one of the most significant prospects at Hong Kong. It may seem to sweeten the bitter pill of preference erosion and exclusion from the talks, but it totally fails to offer LDCs what they need to overcome their problems in the global trading system.
The Machiavellian motives behind introducing such a proposal on the eve of the Hong Kong Ministerial have been lost on no one – least of all those developing countries which are most threatened by the offensive agenda of the EU and USA. Nine such countries have condemned the EU and other developed countries for attempting "to sow division among developing countries, re-interpret the framework and trajectory of the negotiations and, in a self-serving manner, narrow, limit and – ultimately – undermine the developmental objectives of the Doha Development Agenda." The following sections detail how the EU and USA have set about this task, and how this leaves no alternative but to halt the negotiations.
Agriculture
Elimination of the agricultural subsidies which lead to the dumping of EU and US produce on developing country markets was one of the clearest benefits a genuine Development Round might have delivered. Yet it is now evident that both the EU and USA will be able to maintain and increase the support they provide to their agricultural sectors at the end of the round. The draft ministerial text transmitted to Hong Kong indicates that the WTO has failed to discipline EU and US subsidies as needed to achieve a pro-poor outcome – even in the clear case of cotton, where US subsidies continue to drive 10 million West African farmers deeper into poverty. Ultimately, there has been recognition of the fact that the EU is unable to offer any movement beyond that already effected in the 2003 reform of its Common Agricultural Policy, as reiterated on numerous occasions by Commission officials and member states representatives alike.
Instead of achieving genuine reduction in the farm subsidies of the EU and USA, the draft ministerial text seeks to establish the framework for realising further liberalisation of agricultural regimes in both developing and developed countries. The serious threat this poses to rural communities in developing countries is widely acknowledged, yet the imperative to seek increased market access has taken priority. Defence mechanisms required to meet food security, livelihood security and rural development needs have received less attention than the liberalisation modalities which threaten them. Far from constituting "an integral part of the modalities and outcome of negotiations in agriculture", as demanded by the G33, special products and the special safeguard mechanism have been treated as afterthoughts.
Non-agricultural market access (NAMA)
In sharp contrast to the lack of progress in securing any genuine reduction in agricultural subsidies, WTO negotiations on non-agricultural market access – not only industrial and manufacturing goods but also natural resources – have proceeded rapidly. Yet the direction in which the talks have gone has been without reference to the needs of developing countries. As shown in the draft ministerial text transmitted to Hong Kong, developed countries have secured a framework which advances their offensive interests in NAMA at the expense of industrial development and employment opportunities across the developing world.
The draft text privileges for the first time the use of a Swiss formula in the NAMA negotiations, in line with the importance identified by the EU, USA and Canada to achieving “commercially significant market access improvements” for the multinational corporations whose interests they represent. This harmonising formula now threatens developing countries with a more extreme form of liberalisation than experienced during the Uruguay Round, with all the attendant risks of deindustrialisation, revenue loss, unemployment and increased poverty this entails. In addition, the text calls for accelerated negotiations on non-tariff barriers, rather than recognition of the threats posed by such negotiations to essential public policy measures in both South and North.
Services
The services annex to the draft ministerial text shows just how far the WTO has departed from any semblance of a 'development round'. Rather than reaffirming the right of all countries to schedule liberalisation commitments in line with their own development needs, as enshrined in GATS, the text calls on countries to expand the request-offer process through the introduction of mandatory plurilateral negotiations and commitments such as enhancing foreign ownership rights. Despite vocal resistance from a majority of developing country members, these new elements have been included in the annex as transmitted to Hong Kong. While mention of the annex has now been placed in square brackets in the main body of the text, the EU has registered its determination to press for even more stringent modalities, including the introduction of numerical indicators or 'benchmarks' by which to force countries into making higher levels of GATS commitments.
In addition to reinstating the services annex at Hong Kong, the EU is also hoping to introduce a WTO agreement on government procurement of services via the negotiations on GATS rules. This is despite the rejection by the WTO General Council of the less harmful agreement on transparency in government procurement in August 2004. Although there has been persistent opposition to such an idea by developing countries, the services annex transmitted to Hong Kong states that WTO members should put greater emphasis on “proposals for a possible framework for government procurement”.
Conclusion
The much-vaunted Doha Development Agenda has been revealed as an empty promise in each of the major negotiating areas. No 'development package' tabled at Hong Kong should be allowed to obscure this fact. The WTO must halt these negotiations now rather than undermining development and poverty reduction in developing countries. Better to abandon the round than abandon the world’s poor.
 |  | The Ding Dong in Hong Kong:
The WTO met in Hong Kong in December 2005 to decide the future of international trade - and War on Want was there. | |
 | | Mass Lobby of Parliament:
Over 8,000 people showed up to lobby their MPs for trade justice not free trade, and War on Want was there with them. |
 | | NAMA watch:
Forcing open industrial and manufacturing markets threatens to increase poverty levels through the WTO's non-agricultural market access (NAMA) negotiations. |
 | | Stop EPAs Campaign:
Economic Partnership Agreements - the EU's latest approach to negotiating 'free trade' agreements with the countries of the ACP. |
 | | Trade Justice Movement:
War on Want is an integral part of the Trade Justice movement campaigning for trade justice - not free trade - with the rules weighted to benefit poor people and the environment. |
