SMALL COUNTRIES COMPLAIN OVER GATT MEETINGS.

May 4, 1985

SMALL COUNTRIES COMPLAIN OVER GATT MEETINGS.

GENEVA, MAY 2 (IFDA/CHAKRAVARTHI RAGHAVAN)— Several countries, with relatively small delegations, voiced their complaints on Wednesday over the way the calendar of meetings in GATT were being scheduled by the secretariat without adequate consultations.-

The complaints were voiced Wednesday at the meeting of the GATT Council.-

India reportedly complained that though "consultations" had been promised, when the issue had been raised earlier this year, in fact there had been no such consultations with a large number of delegations, and small delegations were finding it increasingly difficult to cope with the work.-

The Indian complaint was supported by Argentina, Australia and Egypt among others, while the U.S. defended the present situation.-

However, the Director-General is reported to have promised wider consultations in future.-

According to some participants, behind the seemingly procedural objections, were the growing concerns, cutting across the normal north-south divides, about the way the GATT machinery was functioning, taking note mainly of the concerns and preoccupations of the major trading blocs and ignoring those of the smaller Industrial and the Third World countries alike.-

Though in theory it was supposed to be a "tentative schedule", the calendar of meetings till end of July set up by the secretariat, GATT delegations say, has not only made the meetings "very rigid", but has also indirectly set its own priorities.-

It has also aroused suspicions that it is all part of a grand design, to create the view that normal GATT work has gone as far as it could, and that any progress is possible only through a new trade round.-

The crowding and bunching up of meetings in the first and second quarters of the year, also appeared to some to be aimed at "a particular event", namely, the high-level meeting of GATT Contracting Parties at senior official level that was being promoting by U.S., Japan and EEC since last November, but on which there has been so far no decision or agreement.-

In other UN agencies, the calendar of meetings, and thus the priority of work, is settled by the intergovernmental body concerned.-

In UNCTAD, it is the practice that not only the meetings, but the agenda etc, are to be settled on the basis of monthly informal consultations, held by the secretary-general and open to all members.-

"The whole process is totally transparent", and all countries, big and small, have an opportunity to voice their concerns, one third World delegate pointed out.-

But only in GATT, with its history of "a provisional treaty", and with no formalised secretariat arrangements for over two decades, a different practice has grown up, and it is one of "non-transparency", the delegate pointed out.-

When the general agreement was first signed in November 1947, and put into effect provisionally from January 1948, it had been hoped the Havana charter would come into being and would take the general agreement.-

For quite a while, the preparatory secretariat arrangements for the international trade organisation under the Havana charter, functioned as the secretariat of GATT, and even the post of a Director-General of GATT was formalised only much later.-

In GATT, the calendar and often even the agenda, are settled by the Director-General in consultation with the chairman of the GATT Council, and in the case of individual meetings with the chairman of the GATT body concerned.-

And some of the meetings are chaired by the secretariat itself.-

In the tentative calendar for April to July, delegates noted that a total of 64 formal meetings had been scheduled, with 20 of them overlapping.-

Besides, there were any number of informal meetings and consultations not listed.-

This made it difficult for the smaller countries, whether Industrial or Third World, who had hardly one or two officials looking after the whole range of GATT activities, to be adequately prepared and participate in such meetings.-

And without such preparation and participation, smaller countries would be faced with decisions arrived at by major countries to suit their own interests, and ignoring those of others.-

Even in terms of priorities, some delegates point out, four meetings were scheduled on "services", and four on "counterfeit goods", between April and July. This despite the fact that there is no agreement on either GATT jurisdiction in these areas, or the priority to be accorded in future work.-

As soon as the GATT Contracting Parties, in November 1984, agreed as a compromise for formal meetings of the CPs, to be organised by the chairman of the CPs, for exchange of information on national studies on "services", Third World delegates noted that the secretariat immediately organised a meeting on services in January, and outlined a schedule of one or two meetings on this every month.-

Only the U.S. has been pushing the services issue, and both U.S. and EEC are interested in the counterfeit issue, and both want to use GATT to secure objectives in these fields that they are unable to secure in UN fora dealing with them.-