10:30 AM Feb 6, 1997

SIERRA LEONE AT WTO - A CASE STUDY

Geneva, 6 Feb (Chakravarthi Raghavan) -- Developing countries, including the least developed among them, are constantly exhorted to 'integrate' themselves into the world economy and participate actively in international trade, but they can't do so unless they get technical and financial help to participate with their presence in the work of the World Trade Organization, according to a new case study.

"It is unsatisfactory to exhort developing countries to participate in the New World Trade Order without lending a practical hand of aid, as well as a sympathetic ear" to the problems these countries face in participating in the work of the WTO, authors Michael Hindley MEP and Beatrice Chaytor say in a pamphlet -- a case study of Sierra Leone's participation in the WTO -- which argues that the WTO secretariat did not show flexibility in applying the rules.

Mr. Hindley is a Member of the European Parliament from UK and Ms. Chaytor is a staff lawyer at the Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development (FIELD), an independent professional organization registered as a UK charity, and based in the University of London. Ms. Chaytor is a Sierra Leone national and represents that country on the WTO Committee on Trade and Environment (CTE).

The study is based on, or related to, Sierra Leone's efforts to participate at the WTO, through the work of its Committee on Trade and Environment, through two outsiders designated as its representatives -- Ms. Chaytor who is a Sierra Leone national on the staff of a London-based NGO in the environment area, FIELD, and Mr. James Cameron, who teaches environment law and is Director of the Field project based at the University of London.

The study complains that the WTO secretariat did not readily accept the composition of Sierra Leone's CTE delegation (Chaytor as representative and Cameron, who is actually the Director of the project, as consultant/advisor).

Trade officials at the WTO, conceding the difficulties of developing countries, and the least developed, to participate effectively in the daily work of the WTO, agree on the need for financial and other support to the developing countries in these matters.

They note that even some of the leading and active participants among developing countries have only one or two hands to field at WTO, and the multiplicity of formal and informal meetings and negotiations is a great physical and mental strain.

"It is not a level playing field where the US and EU can field 20-30 staff, including support staff, while the developing countries, can only an afford an ambassador, often also staffing other meetings, and one or two junior hands," they say.

However, they add, in the case of participation at the CTE by Ms. Chaytor as a Sierra Leone representative and Cameron as an advisor, there were many other problems, including lack of proper credentials (the initial copy presented was one with several lines 'blocked out'), and some of the objections came from other developing countries, 'suspicious' of London-based Field staff (NGO activists) representing the country.

Sierra Leone is a least developed country situated in West Africa, with a population of 4.5 million, having abundant rainfall, fertile soil and with deposits of gold and diamonds, and a rich fishing ground off its coast. At independence, it became a GATT member in its own right, but has never had a mission in Geneva. The GATT work was covered by its mission in Paris, and later from Brussels.

According to the study, the trade liberalisation efforts of the country were prompted by need to meet the World Bank/IMF conditionalities, and in trade matters it has "closer relationship with the World Bank than with the WTO". In 1995, Sierra Leone became aware of the complex issues of the world order, and the increasing globalization of the world economy, and felt the need to participate in the WTO, and viewed with interest the creation of the CTE.

In an effort to explain the interest in participation in the work of the CTE, the study projects the country as one aware of the growing importance placed on environment and need to incorporate environmental considerations into its development plans, and the CTE was viewed as a useful mechanism for assisting the country policy-makers to better understand relationship between trade rules and environment so that its goals could be realised through appropriate trade policies.

It is possible that some policy maker in Sierra Leone indeed is conscious of the environment issue, and possible trade problems. But to project the government's interest in the WTO, through only the CTE is perhaps reflective of the fact that one of the authors is on the staff of FIELD, which is active in the area of trade and environment policy conflicts and has a collaboration project with Sierra Leone to provides technical help to the Sierra Leone delegation to the CTE.

The study notes that the Uruguay Round has special provisions for developing and least developed countries (LDCs), granting them breathing space before full implementation of the liberalised trading regime. WTO membership is symbolically important for many countries, "even if participation commits these states to pursue economic development i a direction which the country itself may not be fully convinced of."

Also, actual implementation of WTO rules and procedures can place burdens on smaller and developing countries beyond their capacity to fulfil. And many countries joined the WTO without the capacity to fully understand their obligations and have little enough human resources to participate in it in any meaningful way, the authors point out.

They note that the EU with 20% of the world's exports and the US with 15.5% have substantial staffs of trade specialists to ensure that they influence the rules in their perceived best interests.

But the rules they made will determine how everyone trades, including the developing countries, who practically speaking have little influence on making these rules, and little capacity to devote to implementing them.

"The debate whether the WTO is a good or bad thing is for another arena," say the authors whose starting point is "the obvious and actual existence of the WTO."

Representation at the WTO, they note, is by governments only -- a common norm of international law. Its merits are not in dispute, but the rigidity with which the rule has so far been applied at the WTO can cause difficulties for smaller countries, they note.

It has already caused problems in the WTO's dispute settlement process where the government of St. Lucia and St. Vincent, having to present its case before the WTO panel on the banana dispute sought the assistance of outside trade lawyers, who were however excluded from the hearings on the ground they were not government officials.

The authors that prompted by the European Parliament, the European Commission used its good offices and the representatives were readmitted to the panel procedure.

However, the authors say, smaller countries without the domestic capacity for representation surely deserve latitude to employ outside help, specially where this is done 'pro bono'.

"Until they develop their own domestic capacity, and this will take a long time, developing countries should be allowed outside help, as of right, and not by the grace and favour of benign intervention by the EU... Such latitude is allowed under the Vienna Convention on Law of Treaties... It is important that the WTO is brought swiftly into line with norms of international behaviour."

The Sierra Leone case study, the authors say, demonstrates the clear need for the least developed members of the WTO to be given practical assistance, involving actual representation, to enable them to participate in the WTO. "Clearly, the sovereign right of each WTO member to choose its own representatives should be respected in both rule and practice," they add.

The study says while participating actively in the work of the CTE, the disadvantage of not participating in the work of other bodies related to the CTE's work -- the Committee on Trade and Development, the Committee on Agriculture, the Committee on Market Access and the Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade -- became clear to Sierra Leone. It was unable to participate in the work of these and other bodies in the preparations for the Singapore Ministerial Conference.

The study also brings out problems for small delegations, serviced by an office from outside Geneva, to attend meetings, some of whose timings and schedules change suddenly, and with bulk of negotiations taking place informally and over weeks.

All these led to Sierra Leone going into the SMC, with at best a sketchy knowledge of the organization and purpose of the Singapore meeting. It had to align itself with existing coalitions (within the LDCs, the African countries or the ACP). It had not also participated in the WTO Conference of Ministers of Least Developed countries, and had no idea about the substance of the Plan of Action for LDCs.

And with negotiations going on right to the end on the language of the Final Ministerial Declaration -- the study says, these negotiations were at the General, while in fact it was an informal heads of delegation process chaired by the WTO head -- Sierra Leone was not a party to these and did not know the substance of the draft, but at Singapore attempted to consolidate its position around the opinions of various coalitions.

In reality, the study says, if a country was not one of the main contenders in the negotiations in Geneva, it was not part of the negotiations huddle in Singapore, where negotiations on new issues took place behind closed doors among a small group of WTO members. While Sierra Leone participated in the meetings of the ACP and the LDC groups, the extent to which these delegations could or did influence the main negotiations was arguable since "these meetings took place too late to have any significant impact".

The study says that while Sierra Leone's difficulties stem from lack of resources, they were exacerbated by the lack of flexibility of the WTO. Countries like Sierra Leone, with little available resources, are the most marginalised in the WTO - since they don't have the human, technical and financial resources to establish and maintain a permanent presence in the WTO, which they need to pursue and protect their interests.

These countries face the acute dilemma of having to develop necessary human and technical capability to represent them and what to do in the interim while developing such expertise. While they could for the interim engage outside expertise, this is difficult when the credentials of outside experts could be challenged.

While the optimum solution is for each country to develop and sustain their human, technical and financial capacities - and in the WTO context they could bring benefits in the shape of clear trade advantages -- they would need assistance of a practical and financial nature to establish required missions in Geneva and staff them with expertise, the study says. Such assistance, it says, should come from international organizations and trading partners.

The EU, which provides aid through the Lome Convention to the ACP members -- many of whom, the study says, are only 'paper members' -- could use it aid programme to train trade expertise.

The international community, through its bilateral and multilateral aid programs, could provide financial assistance to help marginalised countries to establish missions in Geneva.

"If the world needs to trade, then the world needs to know how to trade," the authors conclude.