Jul 27, 1988
MONTREAUX MEETING MAKES NO PROGRESS.
GENEVA, JULY 25 (IFDA/CHAKRAVARTHI RAGHAVAN) -- A Caucus of Officials from a small group of GATT members, convened by Switzerland but at U.S. instance, over the weekend at Montreaux in Switzerland, reviewed progress of Uruguay round negotiations but made no progress, according to some of the participants in the meeting. Hosted by Switzerland, the caucus had been intended be a preparation for the October meeting in Islamabad of Ministers from a select group of countries. While formal invitations for the Islamabad meeting is reportedly yet to be issued, it is intended to be an informal preparatory meeting for the Montreal mid-term review. The Montreaux Caucus, one of the participants said, was somewhat curious, both in respect of those invited and those who were not. The only third world countries invited were Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay, South Korea, Pakistan, Thailand and Egypt. India, an active participant in all the negotiating groups, was not invited. There was also no representative from Sub-Saharan Africa. In explaining exclusion of India from the list, the Swiss hosts have reportedly explained privately that they had invited various viewpoints among third world countries, and they believed Brazil would represent Indian views also. However, Brazil stayed away. Though the Brazilian delegation did not give any official explanation, some of the Montreaux participants said it was a protest against the U.S. action, announced over the weekend by the White House, of planned retaliatory actions against Brazil over its alleged failure to provide intellectual property protection to U.S. drug manufactures. The WIPO, and the Paris Union Conventions on Intellectual property, of which Brazil is a founding signatory, give autonomy to signatories to decide which areas and sectors of intellectual property rights would be protected and how. The only stipulation is that signatories should provide equal treatment to their nationals and those of other signatory countries. According to some of the participants, the U.S. action against Brazil was seen by several of the Montreaux Caucus as the kind of action that soured the general atmosphere for the negotiations. According to several participants, the Caucus reviewed the negotiations in various areas, and for the most part the protagonists merely reiterated their views. While industrial countries are trying to make it appear that progress is being made in the negotiations, one of the participants at Montreaux said that he found there was no common ground on most of the negotiating issues. The Montreaux meeting reportedly felt that agriculture, Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), safeguards and textiles and clothing were "political sensitive" issues and would need some Ministerial level guidance for any progress in negotiations. Among other issues, services, subsidies and rollback were seen as areas needing more analytical and organisations work. On tropical products, and issue that third world countries have been seeing as an area where the industrial north should implement past commitments and liberalise access to their markets, the industrialised countries at Montreaux reportedly rejected the view that this was a "north-south" issue, implying that it was for all countries including third world countries, to liberalise the access to their markets for tropical products. Other areas where the industrial countries felt progress could and should be registered at Montreal reportedly include tariffs, dispute settlement, and the functioning of the GATT system