India’s defiance could mean ‘dead end’ in WTO negotiations on food, vaccines, fishing

Name: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala becomes first African, first woman director general of WTO
Uploaded: 2022-06-16T03:45:09.000Z
Duration: 2 min 3 s
Description: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala becomes first African, first woman director general of WTO

WTO extended talks amid doubts it could find consensus on change to global trade rules and India adamant it would not yield on food, fisheries and vaccines

Civil society groups argue that it was rich nations, with inflexibility towards the needs of the developing world, that were responsible for the impasse

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The World Trade Organization negotiations on food, fisheries and vaccines stretched into the early hours on Thursday amid growing doubts that tough bargaining could deliver deals in the face of Indian intransigence. Photo: Reuters

Reuters

Published: 11:45am, 16 Jun 2022

The World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations on food, fisheries and vaccines stretched into the early hours on Thursday amid growing doubts that tough bargaining could deliver deals in the face of Indian intransigence.

During the WTO’s ministerial conference this week, its first major meeting in over four years, the 164-member body is seeking to agree a response to the Covid-19 pandemic, a reduction of fishing subsidies, food security pledges and the launch of internal reform in a package of deals badly needed to prove the body’s relevance.

The future success of a trade body that has not concluded any multilateral agreements in almost a decade hinges on members making sufficient compromises in the coming hours to overcome a veto by any of its 164 members.

“There are three roads out of here,” International Chamber of Commerce Secretary-General John Denton said in video statement. “The first is compromise, which will provide relevance for the WTO. The second is muddling together something that looks acceptable. The third is the dead end.”

“It looks like the 100 ministers present in Geneva are condemning the WTO to a dead end,” he said. “We’re going to work like hell to find ways through that.”

WTO director general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told the more than 100 ministers present that time was running out and that they should “go the extra mile”. The June 12-15 conference has already been extended by an extra day into Thursday. United States trade representative Katherine Tai leaves in the morning, a US official confirmed, adding pressure to strike deals in the coming hours.

The WTO takes decisions by consensus, so just one objection can sink a deal.

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Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala becomes first African, first woman director general of WTO