Quintuple effect at WTO

Can the Director-General elect and his team of four deputies steer members towards a successful Ministerial meeting at Bali?

Director-General elect at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Roberto Azevêdo of Brazil, has announced his team of four deputies for his term at the multilateral body. The director general and his team have a tough job at hand as the multilateral trade organisation will face possible redundancy if member countries fail to deliver a result at the upcoming Ministerial meeting at Bali, Indonesia in December 2013.

The four deputies who have been appointed are Yi Xiaozhun of China, Karl-Ernst Brauner of Germany, Yonov Frederick Agah of Nigeria and David Shark of the US.

The first test for the senior team within the WTO would be to steer members towards a successful Ministerial meeting at Bali. Countries are working to arrive at a consensus on the way forward on three issues identified as possible deliverables at Bali - trade facilitation, agriculture and development. A successful Bali Ministerial, many analysts aver, may help member countries conclude the languishing Doha Round.

An end of the Doha Round can help the WTO find fresh agenda, which reflects the current global economic environment and breathe some new life into the Geneva-based trade body that has been languishing since 2005, as the extensively broad agenda of the Doha Round has stalled any progress.

The 159-member organisation has a lot at stake with the growth of regional trade agreements over the last few years. There are over 550 notified regional trade agreements at the WTO at last count of which about 350 are in operation. This provides a huge challenge to the supremacy of the WTO as a credible organisation for liberalising trade and making it beneficial for all member countries. The problem has been confounded by the criss-cross of free trade agreements that cover nearly every member of the WTO.

It will be important to look at the background of these individuals who will comprise the top team of the WTO secretariat to understand how they can change the current standstill at Geneva.

The director general, his four DDGs and his Chef de Cabinet, Tim Yeend of Australia, have represented their respective countries at WTO during the Doha Round and are fully aware of the positions of different countries on various issues. This is expected to give them an advantage in helping countries move towards a consensus on issues. They all have been hard-core trade negotiators.

A WTO release said that Yi Xiaozhun is a senior trade official in China's Ministry of Commerce who has worked on international trade issues since the 1980s. He has served as China's Ambassador to the WTO since 2011. Ernst Brauner is a senior officer in the Federal Department of Economics and Technology who has been Germany's representative to the Trade Policy Committee in Brussels for the last 12 years. He has been involved with the WTO since the start of the Doha Development Agenda.

Yonov Frederick Agah has been closely involved with international trade issues in the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment since the early 1990s, including as Nigeria's Ambassador to the WTO since 2005. He was Chair of the WTO General Council in 2011. David Shark has been serving as the US' Deputy Permanent Representative to the WTO since 2000 and has a long experience with General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and WTO issues going back to the 1970s in the Office of the US Trade Representative.

What, however, has been an interesting to note is that none of these individuals represent a least developed country that has a strong voice within the WTO. This probably is a pointer that member countries no longer hope to see the WTO secretariat represent any specific grouping but would look towards them to help members identify areas of convergence. This would become clearer as we move forward on the agenda for Bali in the coming months.

The expectation from the trade negotiators who have now occupied senior roles within the secretariat is large as member countries move towards Bali and beyond.

The new DG while announcing his team said "the skills and experience that my deputies bring will help ensure that we can develop and enhance the WTO's agenda across its many different areas of work". What they have to ensure is to bring hope back for member countries to make WTO a relevant and dependable organisation for trade liberalisation and market access.

The writer is principal adviser at APJ-SLG Law Offices