What to expect from the Nairobi WTO trade talks

Trade ministers from around the world are gathering this week in Nairobi, Kenya, to work on an agreement to liberalize global trade and resolve the Doha round of trade talks.

The World Trade Organization’s 10th ministerial meeting, which runs 15-18 December, follows more than a decade of stalled trade negotiations, beginning in the Qatari capital in 2001 and arriving at an impasse of multilateral trade that many believe could spell the end of the Doha agenda – and possibly the WTO itself.

As talks in Nairobi get underway, we ask four world trade experts why this latest round of discussions is so important, and what we can expect to come from them.

Why are the Nairobi talks so important?

For one thing, ministers have an opportunity to deliver concrete results for world trade in areas such as agriculture and IT products. But the importance of Nairobi goes beyond these potential deals: ministers are also expected to provide guidance on how the WTO should advance. Right now, members disagree on whether to continue negotiations under the framework of the Doha Round or try a new approach. There is also a debate as to whether the WTO agenda could be expanded to include discussion of matters such as investment, e-commerce and ways to enhance the participation of small and medium-size enterprises in global trade. This discussion will shape the future of the negotiating function of the WTO in terms of “how”, and “on what”, negotiations are furthered. Whatever happens in Nairobi, it’s clear that the conversation in 2016 will be different.
Tatiana Prazeres, Senior Adviser to the Director-General, World Trade Organization (WTO), Geneva

It will be the first time that the ministerial conference takes place in Africa, which is a positive signal for the developing world and the recognition that WTO is firmly engaged with development issues. Also, this occasion will be part of 20-year anniversary celebration for the organization. More importantly, 2015 should have been a turning point for the multilateral trading system to consider the new realities of the global economy and the common challenges we face – challenges that dynamic and free international trade can help to solve.
Hector Casanueva, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Chile to the WTO, Geneva

There’s a shared belief – one that is still rarely expressed in public – that the Doha Round has to be mercifully brought to an end. Doing so (notably by refusing to chart a future course for the negotiations) would allow members to contemplate the trading system’s future with a clean slate and adapt the rules of global commerce to the twin reality of 1) a dramatically altered geography of trade and investment and 2) the resulting shifts in economic governance and influence deriving from it. I very much doubt that members will actually agree to terminate the Doha Round in Nairobi, but they may well reach the same point through what one could call a negative list approach: by simply not charting a Doha Development Agenda after Nairobi.
Pierre Sauvé, Director of External Programs and Academic Partnerships at the World Trade Institute (WTI), Switzerland

What are the main discussion points?

Agriculture is a key issue. Members are negotiating a deal to eliminate export subsidies, and also negotiating provisions related to food security programmes. Besides that, they are negotiating a package of decisions to support the participation of least-developed countries in world trade, covering goods and services. Additionally, some members are working to conclude negotiations on the expansion of the Information Technology Agreement. That deal would eliminate tariffs on 200 IT products, covering annual trade of $3 trillion.
Tatiana Prazeres

What outcome should we hope for?

The best-case scenario is that we have a ministerial conference that delivers outcomes on the negotiating agenda, and leaves the WTO in a better position to further advance negotiations in Geneva – hopefully at a faster pace and in a more productive manner.
Tatiana Prazeres

We need a modest step to eliminate agriculture export subsidies and other forms of assistance, coupled with a credible process to deal with the remainder of the Doha agenda, and the beginning of serious exchanges on “new” issues.
Alejandro Jara, Senior Counsel, King & Spalding, Switzerland

What’s the worst that could happen?

The doomsday scenario is that, regardless of what the ministerial formally declares, there will be no substantive negotiations in the World Trade Organization. In other words, a continuation of the present situation. If ministers can’t solve this, what then?
Alejandro Jara

If we are to save the WTO’s legislative function, it has to involve a shared acceptance of the need for institutional renewal and constitutional reform. The more universal the WTO membership becomes – and it will become yet more universal in Nairobi with the accession of two new members, Afghanistan and Liberia – the more unwieldy the quest for consensus becomes. Political legitimacy without commercial efficiency is not a sustainable proposition. Ways must be found to impart greater doses of variable geometry in the WTO, notably through plurilateral or critical-mass agreements among like-minded members that are brokered under a legitimizing multilateral roof (unlike the ongoing TISA talks, which have created a parallel exclusive universe in services trade).
Pierre Sauvé

What next for the WTO?

I believe we will have a sound success, but even without one, ministers must recognize the centrality of the organization in the multilateral system and highlight its capacity of monitoring trade policies, solving trade disputes among members, putting into force the trade facilitation agreement, promoting the plurilateral agreements inside the WTO and delivering development issues according with the needs of the least developed countries.
Hector Casanueva

A successful conference will inject new energy into the work of the WTO, building on other recent positive results such as the conclusion of the Trade Facilitation Agreement. It will show that the WTO can cut trade deals with real economic impact. And those deals can certainly inspire more negotiated outcomes. In any case, the relevance of the WTO is not limited to trade negotiations, which are the focus of these ministerial meetings. The WTO is bigger than its negotiating function, and its dispute-settlement system illustrates that very clearly.
Tatiana Prazeres

We should not forget that the World Trade Organization supplies several global public goods (actually, services) beyond its legislative functions. Still, the biggest threat the membership confronts today, especially its weakest members who are often less engaged in preferential alternatives (particularly of the mega-regional type), is the risk that continued paralysis at the negotiating table begins to undermine the WTO’s efficacy and authority in dispensing its other core functions, particularly its adjudicatory ones. While Nairobi will almost certainly not address these meta-challenges, the time has come to clear the deck for a frank, post-Nairobi, “WTO 2.0” discussion.
Pierre Sauvé

Have you read?
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How can the WTO remain relevant?
Can we reinvigorate global trade?

Author: Anna Bruce-Lockhart is an editor at the World Economic Forum

Image: World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General Roberto Azevedo, November 26, 2015. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse