The ‘inside story’ commentators

‘Inside story’ revelations abound. Their chief concern is to reveal the power politics in WTO negations. Chris May, for instance, talks about developing countries having strongly opposed the inclusion of TRIPs and GATS in the Uruguay Round. Yet, after years of rejection and failure, the US and the EU managed to impose a final settlement on the Uruguay Round with a take-it-all or leave-it-all ultimatum to developing countries. Against such pressure, developing countries had no choice but to ‘take it all’, despite the fact that they had long opposed the inclusion of the TRIPs and GATS. 106 This, May surmises, might also explain why, ‘on virtually every issue – e.g., the scope of

patentability, the length of patent terms, and the provisions for regulating patents – the

105 _{Dicken, Peter, 2004, ‘Globalisation, Production and the (Im)Morality of Uneven Development’, in} Geographies and Moralities: International perspectives on Development, Justice and Place, Lee, Rodger

and Smith, David M. (eds), Blackwell Publishing, p.29.

106 _{May, Chris, ‘Capacity Building and the (Re)production of Intellectual Property Rights’, vol. 25, no. 5,} Third World Quarterly, 2004, p. 822.

developed countries prevailed’. The only concession that the most-developed countries agreed to with respect to TRIPs, for example, was the transitional period, but this was hardly a generous offer, since many developing countries were eventually unable to benefit from it.107

The US and EU have long known that time is on their side, but not on the side of developing countries eager to join globalisation and benefit from trade liberalisation whenever possible. Thus the failures of the Cancun Round in 2003, the Geneva Round in 2004, the Hong Kong Round in 2005 and the Doha Round in 2006 and again in 2008 were not surprising, since the developed countries were not willing to modify their positions on domestic agriculture subsidies, nor to meet developing countries’

expectation of trade concessions, both of which issues were of vital importance to many developing countries.108

A tough strategy had already been used to effect in the Uruguay Round, where the developing countries had no choice but to accept the unfair legal frameworks of the TRIMs and GATS, as well as their inclusion in the WTO, despite their long opposition to these agreements and to their inclusion. They had no choice because the US and the EU infused these agreements with ‘sweeteners’ that the developing countries were eager to utilise. Had they not accepted the TRIMs and GATS, the developing countries had nothing else to gain.109

107 _Ibid.

108_{Mulama, J, ‘African leaders say US farm subsidies stifle development’, Global Information Network,}

17 April 2006.

The Doha Round begun in 2001, and was dubbed the ‘Development Round’ for the attempt by some of its negotiators to construct a capacity to deal with issues of concern for developing countries. It collapsed in 2006.110 Under the leadership of Brazil, the Doha Round introduced the Declaration on the TRIPs Agreement and Public Health. The objective of the Declaration was to push for interpretations and implementations of the TRIPs that are more supportive of the rights and interests of developing countries in protecting public health and promoting access to medicines for all. The specific concern of developing countries at the time, and their prime motive for supporting the

Declaration, was HIV/AIDS, and the fact that the existing compulsory licensing

provision was working against the possibility of the containment of this deadly virus. The developed countries had neither the health problem nor the inclination to reduce the privileges the existing compulsory licensing provision afforded their pharmaceutical industries; consequently, they ensured the failure of the Round.111

For WTO supporters, a celebrated outcome of WTO-driven free trade is that: The proportion of people living in extreme poverty (less than $1 a day) in

developing countries dropped by almost half between 1981 and 2001, from 40 to 21 percent of global population, according to figures released today by the World Bank.112

This is marred ‘only’ by the fact that ‘the proportion of poor has grown, or fallen only slightly, in many countries in Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe and Central

110

Siddiqi, M, ‘Crunch time for world trade deal’, no. 324, African Business, October 2006.

111 _{Barton, JH, ‘Trips and the Global Pharmaceutical Market’, Health Affairs, vol. 23, no. 3, 2004, p.144.}

112 _{Neal, Christopher and Case, Cynthia, ‘Global Poverty Down By Half Since 1981 but Progress Uneven}

As Economic Growth Eludes Many Countries’, World Bank website, Press Release No:2004/309/S, 23 April 2004,

http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:20194973~menuPK:34463~page PK:64003015~piPK:64003012~theSitePK:4607,00.html.

Asia’.113 This gave rise to the argument in the WTO supporters’ camp that the outcomes of free trade for developing countries will continue to be positive, and that this will boost the economies of least-developed countries by $142 billion annually.114 Manzella115 argues that global trade-liberalisation gains will range anywhere between $250 and $650 billion annually, of which 30 percent to 50 percent will be witnessed in developing countries. Furthermore, global economic welfare is expected to grow by $128 billion, of which $30 billion will be witnessed in developing countries. The ‘only’ problem, on Manzella’s view, is that some developing countries cannot join in:

For many of the world’s poorest countries, the primary problem is not too much globalization, but their inability to participate in it. These conditions entirely reverse the normative thrust of the [WTO] policy away from the benefits to the developing country and towards the effects on the developed country’.116 The problem, as Manzella’s somewhat frugal logic has it, is the incompetent countries. But for their incompetence, we would be looking forward to a better world. A black humour pervades this line of reasoning, whether or not its purveyor is aware of it.

One might add the point to the WTO-supporter camp that, but for the existence of the WTO, Brazil would not have been able to protect the cotton industries of Benin and Chad, nor its own, against US protectionism. As it is, the comparatively weak Brazil was able to assert its WTO-conferred right to challenge US non-compliance by bringing a successful case before the DSB against that much stronger economy.

113 _Ibid.

114

Schwab, S. ‘More trade, less poverty’, Wall Street Journal, 29 June 2006.

115 _{Manzella, JL, ‘Have Trade and Globalization Harmed Developing Countries?’, World Trade, 5 January}

2006, http://www.worldtrademag.com/Articles/Column/7f24a880cfc98010VgnVCM100000f932a8c0____