Nov 19, 1985
RBP REVIEW CONFERENCE ENDS IN DISAGREEMENT.
GENEVA, NOVEMBER 16 (IFDA/CHAKRAVARTHI RAGHAVAN)— The UN Review Conference on the control of Restrictive Business Practices (RBPs) ended Friday night in failure - with the OECD countries on one side, and the G77, Socialists and China on the other, in complete disagreement on the review of the implementation of "the set".-The Conference remitted the report of the two-week session, and the various proposals before it, to the UN General Assembly, requesting the assembly to decide "whether to convene a resumed session of the conference in 1986".- "The set" is the set of multilaterally agreed equitable principles and rules for the control of restrictive business practices.- Negotiated in 1979 and 1980, under the auspices of the UN Conference on Trade and Development, the set was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1980, as a non-binding set of international norms, addressed to governments and enterprises, for the control of RBPs affecting international trade, particularly those of the Third World countries.- As mandated in the set, the UN General Assembly had convened the Review Conference to review the application and implementation of the set and consider proposals for the improvement and further development of the set.- Prolonged negotiations this week between the various regional groups failed to achieve a compromise on any of the proposals and issues before the Conference.- According to Group of 77 sources, it was clear right from the beginning of the Conference that the OECD countries had no interest in any serious negotiations aimed at improving the control and elimination of RBPs in international trade, and particularly the increasing current resort to it as a tool of protectionism.- As one of the participants in the negotiations put it, there were fundamental differences between the OECD countries on the one side, and all others on the other, on almost every point: There was difference on whether the use of RBPs affecting international trade had increased or decreased, on whether governments and particularly those of the industrial market economy countries, had tried to implement the set and control RBPs or had allowed resort to it at enterprise level in order to obviate need for governmental protection.- And, there were differences on the questions of raising the level of the institutional machinery that monitors the implementation of the set and where governments could exchange views and discuss the issues.- The Group of 77 had tabled proposals noting the increase in use of RBPs, and calling for "standstill and rollback" by industrial countries in use of RBPs in international trade, and for establishment or strengthening of notification procedures on use of RBPs by enterprises.- The G77 had also sought to have a Special Committee of UNCTAD function as the custodian of the set and undertake an annual monitoring role, and be a forum for intergovernmental consultations and discussions.- Currently a more limited role of exchange of views and experiences is undertaken through an Intergovernmental Group of Experts (IGE).- The OECD countries in their draft, while conceding that RBPs continue to be a problem, would have had the conference take the view that governments had taken actions to implement the set by spreading knowledge about to enterprises, that the set had been successful in fostering international cooperation in area of control of RBPs, and that the IGE should continue to be the institutional machinery.- The group was totally opposed to the creation of a Special Committee in UNCTAD, replacing the existing IGE, as an institutional machinery to monitor and oversee the implementation of the set.- According to some participants in the negotiations, the OECD countries were opposed to anything that would raise the status and level of international consideration of use of RBPs, including by transnational enterprises, to a higher and more political level of discussion and consideration.- They wanted nothing more than an annual exchange of views at "expert level", even if the delegates for the Special Committee would be the same as for the IGE or vice versa.- The G77 sources noted that at the annual IGE meetings so far, the OECD group had been able to avoid any intergovernmental discussions - other than informal exchange of information and experiences in each country in control of RBPs - arguing that such discussions were beyond the scope of technical experts and were within the political ken of governments.- At the final plenary session Friday night, the spokesman of the Group of 77, Mahmoud Assran of Egypt blamed the OECD group of countries, and their lack of political will to negotiate, for the failure of the Conference.- The Group of 77, Assran said, had made the best efforts, and had demonstrated flexibility during negotiations on the proposals it had put forward.- These had been tabled as long ago as April, before the Preparatory Committee for the Conference, to enable its consideration in the capitals.- But there had been no political will on the part of the OECD group to negotiate and develop proposals to improve the implementation of the set.- The use of RBPs in international trade, including those used by TNCs, Assran said, had been harmful to the trade of Third World countries and their economic development, adversely affecting their export earnings and thus their balance of payments and debt servicing capacities.- There was need for intensification of international efforts to control such practices, and the G77 hoped that the General Assembly would decide to convene a resumed session.- Australia’s Merv Keehn, speaking for the OECD group, however claimed that the Conference had been virtually near agreement on some proposals, but had failed because of "controversial proposals" of the Group of 77.- Keehn argued that the proposals of the G77 would have "radically altered" several important provisions of the set and destroyed "the delicate consensus" on which the set was based.- The extensive notification and consultation procedures proposed would have gone beyond the set, and would have imposed "burdensome procedures".- The setting up of the Special Committee would have also resulted in a "politicised institutional machinery".- But the spokesman of the Socialist Group and China endorsed the complaint of the G77 that the failure at the conference was due to the attitude of the OECD group, and hoped that the assembly would agree to reconvene another session.- The Soviet delegate, Gennadi Kuzmin, who spoke for the Socialist Group, said it was a matter for worry that there had not only been a lack of political will to reach agreement on the part of the OECD group, but there was even difference on the assessments about the actual use of RBPs, and specially the refusal of these countries to recognise the obvious link between use of RBPs in international trade and protectionism.- This link was responsible for the deterioration in "trade ethics" and the refusal to accept obligations arising out of commitments of governments on the set.- In a reference to the Australian spokesman of the OECD group, Kuzmin added: "the use of RBPs immediately harms those against whom it is directed, but after a lapse of time it harms those using such RBPs too. It thus has a boomerang effect, a characteristic well known to the spokesman of the OECD group".- China’s Liu Xiaming said in the Conference and during the negotiations, the Group of 77 had exerted every effort and had made many important concessions to reach an agreement, and this had been supported by the Socialist Group and China.- "But none of these concessions had evoked any positive response, and we cannot but express our deep regrets".- China was looking to a resumed session of the Review Conference and hoped by then the countries benefiting now from use of RBPs would seriously assess their situation and see how a similar failure could be avoided at the resumed session.-