<B>By Vijay MAKHAN</B>

As from today, 21 July, in Geneva and for the next three to four days Pascal Lamy, Director-General of the WTO and Chairperson of its General Council will put all his skills at play to be able to herald an end to this century?s first trade negotiations.

In November 2001, when the Doha Round of negotiations was launched, those coming out of the Conference Hall were laughing from ear to ear, oblivious of the obstacles that they would have to tackle as they tread along the serpentine path towards the objective set. For the first time, since the Second World War, emphasis had been laid on Development, much to the satisfaction of the developing world, all categories confounded. The other aspect of the Doha Conference that attracted interest was that the negotiations of this new Round were meant to be concluded within the short lapse of three years! The euphoria that surrounded the Doha meeting was such that some major actors on the scene went as far as overstepping their mandate. One from our continent is reported to have told the then Director-General of WTO, the New Zealander Mike Moore, that he would ?deliver Africa?, having due regard to the fact that a couple of years earlier, in Seattle, it was the African Group that had triggered the collapse of the talks, much to the embarrassment of the Clinton Administration and the WTO bureaucracy.

But lo and behold! After a number of missed deadlines by participating countries and though the Director-Generalship had changed hands (it was now the Thai Supachai Panitchpakdi, therefore from the developing world) the September 2003 Cancun Ministerial meeting proved once more that Development had only been used (Doha Development Round) to lure developing countries to the negotiating table! More of the same was served to them! The bigger countries were concerting among themselves and whatever agreements reached at their level, were then being fed to the developing countries, especially the African countries. These countries had, however, become more conversant with the intricacies of multilateral negotiations by then and were not prepared to accept such a state of affairs. Moreover, the same Green Room process (small groups of countries meeting to determine the way forward) that would leave the majority of the developing countries on the sidelines and completely in the dark was being favoured by the Conference host and the WTO officials! The irritation among the developing countries, at all levels, was quite palpable to everybody, save seemingly to the major players. The stumbling blocks were then, as they still are today, the agricultural subsidies and industrial tariffs! Development issues had been pushed aside! The haughtiness flagged unashamedly by the developed world players was simply unacceptable. Their dismissive attitude to the African cotton producers? concern, among others, worsened matters. It was in such an atmosphere that both the G20 (Group of 20 large developing countries) spearheaded by India, Brazil and South Africa and the G90 (ACP, African and Least Developed Countries) were launched much to the discomfiture of the West and the WTO Bureaucrats. The failure of the Cancun meeting led Pascal Lamy who was then EU Trade Commissioner to qualify the WTO as a medieval institution! The signatory of this piece, in his then capacity of AU trade and Industry Commissioner and leader of the AU Delegation to the negotiations, castigated the major players, principally the West, for its disdain of the African demands and called on Africa to review of its mode of participation in the WTO.

Almost five years later, the situation has hardly evolved any nearer to completion of the negotiations, notwithstanding the optimism displayed by Pascal Lamy. The US Trade Representative no longer has the Trade Promotion Authority to bind the US in any deal. A number of other issues of concern to the developing world remain to be addressed. To make matters worse, the French who hold the EU presidency for the next six months are, to say the least, suspicious of EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson?s brief. To cap it all, the recent G8 meeting in Hokkaido, Japan has hardly shown much commitment to ensuring a fruitful conclusion of the WTO negotiations, apart from the usual perfunctory call to that end. Moreover, the ACP Group, principally its African membership, is still entangled in the so-called EPA (Economic Partnership Agreements) negotiations with the EU in which more is being required from the former than is expected at the WTO.

The fact that only 30 countries have been called to the Ministerial meeting in Geneva this week, is bound to arouse the same atmosphere of suspicion that had prevailed in Seattle and Cancun. With the current world economic situation beset by rising food and energy prices and characterised by a generally gloomy outlook added to that, the negotiations may yet again ground to a devastating halt.

As the talks open in Geneva today, the negotiators would do well to remind themselves that it is not dawn yet and that they may be presiding over what is likely to become the longest Round of negotiations, overtaking in the process, the Uruguay Round?s seven years!

<B>21 July 2008</B>

P.S. Incidentally, can anybody say what has become of the Aid For Trade carrot?