T N C Rajagopalan: Wanted a skilful WTO chief

EXIM MATTERS

The battle for the post of director-general of World Trade Organisation (WTO) has commenced in right earnest. The front-runner in the race is Pascal Lamy, till recently the Trade Commissioner of the European Union, who had acquired a reputation as a master negotiator.

The other three contenders are Luiz Felipe de Seixas Corrêa of Brazil, Jaya Krishna Cuttaree of Mauritius and Carlos Pérez del Castillo of Uruguay.

The winner will take over the WTO Secretariat for a six-year term from September 1 this year. The term of the present director-general, Supatchi Panitchpakdi of Thailand, expires this August end.

On January 26, the candidates presented themselves before the General Council and made separate statements on their vision for WTO, the challenges ahead and each one said as to how he is best equipped to carry out the task of restoring the credibility of multilateral institutions.

Luiz Felipe de Seixas Corrêa of Brazil openly canvassed that the next director-general must be some one from the developing countries because they are in a majority.

Pascal Lamy tried to set aside the fears of the poorer countries by drawing attention to how he fought on issues such as "Everything But Arms", access to medicines, the abolition of export subsidies etc.

The four aspirants have time till end March to make themselves known to members, to engage in discussions on the pertinent issues facing the WTO, and to be invited to meet members at a formal General Council meeting. By end May, the WTO members have to select and appoint one of the candidates.

Last time, the members failed to unanimously endorse any candidate and in a compromise formula, Mike Moore of New Zealand held office for the first three-year term and Supatchi Panitcpakdi for the next three-year term.

A similar compromise cannot be ruled out this time, as the battle is once again drifting along the lines of a developing country candidate versus a developed country candidate.

During their term, neither Mike Moore nor Supatchi Panitchpakdi tilted in favour of their constituencies. They did what they could with utmost uprightness, that is to grease the wheels of trade negotiations, broker honestly between warring parties, and generally exhort WTO members to do better and try harder.

Chastened by the experience, the WTO members might yet decide to plumb for the best candidate rather than merely look for someone who they think will push their case harder.

As such, the director-general of WTO has little real power. The rich countries hold the real negotiating power. Of late, the G-20 plus - a new coalition of developing countries - has emerged as a counterweight but these very developing countries maintain greater trade restrictions than the others and are in a position to do very little for the Least Developed Countries.

The Doha Development Round is mired in rigid positions of the member countries. After the failure at Cancun, they agreed last July at Geneva to get on with the talks and conclude the Doha round negotiations by this year-end at the Hong Kong meeting of Trade Ministers.

But the talks are still stuck on technicalities even as the member countries go ahead with more bilateral and regional trade agreements. A very neutral and very skilful negotiator is what the WTO needs now.

tncr@sify.com