Archive - 2007

Indonesia will remain firm in its stance favoring “special product exemptions” during the Doha Development Round negotiations, says a minister, brushing aside concerns that the country might compromise on its position in the light of the visit of WTO Director General Pascal Lamy.

Pascal Lamy is a man with a mission. Since assuming the post of Director General of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in September 2005, the former Trade Commissioner of the European Union has taken to heart his role as the captain of global trade, hoping to steer the 148 Member countries of the WTO into concluding a new multilateral trade agreement under the Doha Round the soonest possible time.

The relationship between the TRIPS Agreement and the Convention on Biological Diversity and the issue of enforcement of TRIPS provisions dominated the discussions at a meeting of the TRIPS Council on Tuesday 13 February.

The Doha Round was launched on false pretences, including calling it a development round, and the ability of developed countries to make it a development round is “absent”, according to former United States Trade Representative, Charlene Barshefsky.

How far the developing countries will be able to carry on with the least developed ones, by giving them more concessions will determine which way South Asia Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA) goes.

Worries about the dark side of free trade are surfacing in the United States in ways that could affect the course of globalization worldwide.

The Director General of the World Health Organisation, Dr. Margaret Chan, has sent a letter to Thailand's Health Minister expressing regret for the embarrassment caused to his government by remarks she was reported to have made in Bangkok that were critical of the compulsory licenses granted by the government for three medicines.

The success of the Doha Development Agenda services negotiations will result from the number and quality of 'revised offers' which eventually come forward, said services negotiations chair Fernando De Mateo...

This publication is an initial report on the spread of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) throughout the Asia-Pacific and their impacts on agriculture and food sovereignty, in the context of the current state of play of the WTO, and the devastating legacy of agricultural liberalisation through World Bank/International Monetary Fund structural adjustment programmes.

Southern African countries have shown willingness to experiment with liberalising the agriculture sector, but food security experts feel that some form of government intervention is still required to prevent hunger in the region.