Sep 6, 1985
NO CONSENSUS ON AGENDA FOR CPS SESSION.
GENEVA, SEPTEMBER 4 (IFDA/CHAKRAVARTHI RAGHAVAN) — Two days of private consultations at the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade have failed to produce a consensus on the agenda of the special session of the Contracting Parties (CPs) called for by the U.S.-The agenda of the session will now have to be decided at the session itself, and being a procedural issue, resolved on the basis of a simple majority vote.- The chairman of the Contracting Parties, Felipe Jaramillo of Colombia, is expected to send out notices this week to the Contracting Parties, fixing September 30 as the date of the session, suggesting a provisional agenda on his own responsibility.- The first business of the Contracting Parties would be the approval of the agenda.- The U.S. has sought the special session "for an examination of the subject matter and modalities of a new round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations (MTNs)".- Sixty-one CPs had voted "yes" to the U.S. request.- Under the rules, the provisional agenda of the session is to be drawn up by the secretariat of GATT in consultation with the chairman of the CPs, and the session of the CPs is to approve the agenda.- However the GATT Director-General, Arthur Dunkel, had initiated consultations with the major protagonists in an effort to evolve a consensus on the agenda.- At the consultations, Dunkel reportedly said that on an analysis of the replies, he interpreted that most of the 61 votes were merely concurrence for the meeting and not the agenda.- Only a few, he is reported to have added, had conveyed their concurrence to the agenda proposed by the U.S.A., while some had made comments, including for example the French who said the aim of the meeting should be "to enlarge the consensus on the new round".- The efforts of the Director-General over the last two days to evolve a consensus on the agenda would however appear to have floundered with the U.S., supported by the EEC, Canada and Japan, insisting that its own formulation should be the agenda, and India and others insisting on an agenda that would prejudge the issue of a new round.- India, Brazil and others had sought a more generally worded agenda that would not prejudge the issue of "need" for a new round, and the issues to be covered by it within the areas of GATT competence.- This was not acceptable to the U.S. and its supporters.- The U.S., and some of its supporters, have been calling for a new round and include within it new themes like services, counterfeiting, etc.- The U.S. has made clear that it has no interest in any new round confined to trade in goods only – the area of GATT competence - and that there would be no new MTN round, unless, services and other new issues were also covered within it.- After considerable discussions, the efforts to arrive at a consensus were abandoned Wednesday evening, and the chairman was due to formulate a provisional agenda his own authority.- This is expected to suggest as the agenda "the examination of the subject matter and modalities of a new round of MTNs, which have been proposed by a number of countries".- At the same time, the chairman's communication would also draw attention to the minutes and discussions in the GATT Council, at its meetings in June and July, on "recent developments in international trade and their consequences to GATT and the status of implementation of the 1982 work programme", and the relevant communications of various CPs on the subject.- The U.S. appeared to be pretty confident that it would have its way on the basis of voting if needed, taking comfort from the fact that it has been able to attract the 61 yes votes for the meeting itself.- However, the EEC and some other OECD countries are a little worried about the precedent being set of issues in GATT being decided by a majority vote at sessions of the CPs.- So far, excepting for purely technical decisions - where the General Agreement itself calls for a vote, as on waivers – all decisions in GATT have been taken by consensus.- Sessions of the Contracting Parties themselves have been convoked only on the basis of consensus recommendations of the GATT Council.- Some Third World countries privately welcome the U.S. moves for GATT decisions on the basis of convening of sessions of Contracting Parties through a majority vote on a poll, and for agenda and other decisions at the CPs session being carried out again through voting.- They note that this is a precedent that they could invoke in future on trade disputes, where now the powerful Industrial countries individually or collectively are able to block by refusing consensus.- They also note that while some 39 Third World countries have voted yes to the U.S. request for a special session of the CPs, this is at best only an yes for the beginning of a process, and does not mean that they support the U.S. on the substance of the issues or would participate in negotiations, and agree to an international framework in GATT for trade in services.- If the U.S. and its supporters decide to go ahead and negotiate a framework, it would still have to be approved in the CPs session, and at that time when the actual results would be clearer, the U.S. precedent would be of use to take the issue to a vote, these sources note.- And while the U.S. is still talking of ignoring the minority in launching a new MTN, others in GATT see that it would be a useless exercise if major Third World trading countries refuse to join in such negotiations, including on issues like services.-