LEARNING FROM DOHA
By Walden Bello*
(Composite article based on the author's two presentations at the
meeting of the "Our World is Not for Sale Coalition," Brussels,
Belgium, Dec. 7-9, 2001.)

How should we characterize the outcome of the World Trade
Organization ministerial in Doha? I am not sure if a debate on
whether or not a new round of trade negotiations was launched in
Doha will lead us very far. But something very threatening occurred
in Doha and that is what we must urgently convey to the world,
which at the moment is very confused as to what its outcomes
really were.

THREE KEY OUTCOMES
Three outcomes of Doha must be emphasized.

One, Doha put the World Trade Organization (WTO) back on its
feet after the disaster in Seattle. C. Fred Bergsten, a prominent
partisan of the WTO, once said that the WTO is like a bicycle: it
collapses if it does not move forward. By agreeing on a declaration
giving momentum to new negotiations for liberalization, the Doha
meeting got the bicycle upright and moving again. Mike Moore, the
director general, was not exaggerating when he thanked the
ministerial for "saving the WTO."

Two, what resulted from Doha may not be a new round in the
sense of immediate negotiations on a wide range of issues, but it
was a major step toward further liberalization. First of all, the Doha
declaration affirmed ongoing negotiations on certain existing
agreements, such as agriculture and GATS (General Agreement on
Trade in Services) and opened negotiations to review other existing
agreements, like the anti-dumping agreement. Second, it launched
negotiations for new agreements, for instance, on industrial tariffs.
Third, and perhaps most ominous, by putting them as the
centerpiece of the declaration, Doha gave momentum to the
eventual launching of negotiations to bring new, non-trade areas
within WTO jurisdiction. These are the so-called "new" or
"Singapore issues" of investment, competition policy, government
procurement, and trade facilitation.

Three, Doha was a clear setback for the developing countries, most
of whom had wanted to focus the ministerial and its aftermath on
resolving outstanding issues of implementation from the Uruguay
Round, of which there are at least 104 according to the Group of
77. The declaration simply acknowledged these concerns and
outlined a vague process for their resolution. Indeed, even in key
areas of implementation specified in the text, such as agriculture
and textiles and garments, the developing countries came out as
losers. The European Union managed to water down the Cairns
Group's demand that there be a quick phase-out of agricultural
export subsidies, and the US and other developed countries did not
commit to an early removal of quotas on textile and garment
imports of critical importance to the developing countries.

It is important to stress that the South lost out in Doha because
much of the influential Northern press has been saying that Doha
proves that the developing countries can win in WTO negotiations.
The Doha resolution of the TRIPs (Trade Related Intellectual
Property Rights) and public health issue is often cited to prove this.
Now it is certainly true that this was a step forward for the
developing countries. However, it is important not to exaggerate its
significance. The statement that "Nothing in the TRIPs Agreement
shall prevent Members from measures to protect public health" is a
political statement. There is nothing in the Doha compromise that
commits members to change the text of TRIPs--which was, in
effect, a victory for the US position. Even the Economist, an
untiring promoter of the idea that the WTO is good for the
developing countries, has had to admit, "the declaration is political
and not legally binding." This is important since in the long run it is
the legal text that counts, and it will be the basis on which the
pharmaceuticals may sue developing countries when they deem
the political climate more favorable.

QUALIFYING DEFEAT
Doha was a defeat for the developing world. It is nevertheless
important to realize that the developing countries went to Doha
much better prepared than they were for previous ministerials,
partly owing to the "capacity-building" work of civil society groups
based in Geneva. The united front of a big block of developing
countries who were against the new issues did hold until the end,
when it crumbled under the onslaught of terrific pressure from the
Quad and other developed countries. True, in the end, India stood
alone in active opposition, with the tacit backing-it must be noted--
of a couple of other countries such as Cuba, Jamaica, and the
Dominican Republic. Nonetheless, the consciousness of common
interests and the need of having a common strategy vis-à-vis the
dominant trading powers is something that is greater now and it
provides a good basis for common action in the hard months ahead.

CONTEXT AND TACTICS
Doha took place amidst conditions that were already unfavorable
from the point of view of developing country interests. The
September 11 events provided a heaven-sent opportunity for US
Trade Representative Robert Zoellick and European Union Trade
Commissioner Pascal Lamy to step up the pressure on the
developing countries to agree to the launching of a new trade
round, invoking the rationale that it was necessary to counter a
global downturn that had been worsened by the terrorist actions.
The location was also unfavorable, Qatar being a monarchy where
dissent could be easily controlled. The WTO Secretariat's
authority over who would be granted visas to enter Qatar for the
ministerial allowed it to radically limit the number of legitimate
NGOs that could be present, thus preventing that explosive
interaction of developing country resentment and massive street
protest that took place in Seattle.

Still, these factors would not have been sufficient to bring about an
unfavorable outcome. Tactics mattered, and here the developing
countries were clearly outmaneuvered in Doha. The methods
employed by the European Union and the United States to split the
South must be denounced and, as many participants in the
Brussels meeting of the "Our World is Not for Sale Coalition" (7-9
December) have strongly urged, carefully documented. More
important, they must be studied closely to better prepare the
developing countries next time. Among these tactics the Brussels
meeting highlighted the following:

- Pushing a highly unbalanced draft declaration and presenting it to
the ministerial as a "clean text" on which there allegedly was
consensus, thus restricting the arena of substantive discussion
and making it difficult for developing countries to register
fundamental objections without seeming "obstructionist."

- Pitting officials from the capitals against their negotiators based in
Geneva, with the latter being characterized as "recalcitrant" or
"narrow."

- Employing direct threats, as the United States did when it warned
Haiti and the Dominican Republic to cease opposition to its
position on government procurement or risk cancellation of their
preferential trade arrangements.

- Buying off countries with goodies, as the European Union did
when, in return for their agreeing to the final declaration, it assured
countries in the ACP (Africa-Caribbean-Pacific) group that the WTO
would respect the so-called "ACP Waiver" that would allow them to
export their agricultural commodities to Europe at preferential
terms relative to other developing countries. Pakistan, a stalwart
among developing countries in Geneva, was notably quiet at Doha.
Apparently, this had something to do with the US's granting
Pakistan a massive aid package of grants, loans, and debt
reduction owing to its special status in the US war against
terrorism. Nigeria had taken the step of issuing an official
communique denouncing the draft declaration before Doha, but
came out loudly supporting it on November 14-a flip-flop that is
difficult to separate from the US's coming up with the promise of a
big economic and military aid package in the interim.

- Reinstituting the infamous "Green Room" on November 13 and
14, when some 20 handpicked countries were isolated from the
rest and "delegated" by the WTO secretariat and the big powers to
come up with the final declaration. These countries were not
picked by a democratic process, and efforts by some developing
country representatives to insert themselves into this select group
were rebuffed, some gently, others quite explicitly, as was the
case with a delegate from Uganda.

- Finally, pressuring the developing countries by telling them that
they would bear the onus for causing the collapse of another
ministerial, the collapse of the WTO, and the deepening of the
global recession that would allegedly be the consequence of these
two events.

Doha was a low point in the GATT-WTO's history of backroom
intimidation, threats, bribery, and non-transparency. But take it
from the horse's mouth itself: no less than the EU's Trade
Commissioner, Pascal Lamy, described the Doha process as
"medieval." There are no records of the actual decision-making
process in Doha because the formal sessions of the ministerial--
which is where decision-making is made in a democratic system--
were reserved for speeches, and the real decisions took place in
informal groupings whose meeting places kept shifting and were
not known to all. There being no records, there is little
accountability and the principals in any deals can deny that they
engaged in questionable behavior.

A FRAGILE RECOVERY
The bicycle is upright, but it is still wobbly, and one of the reasons
is that there lingers great resentment among developing countries
of the whole non-transparent process of bamboozling them into
accepting a declaration running counter to their interests. The
WTO's crisis of legitimacy is not over, and the non-transparency
and lack of democracy so evident in Doha may yet deepen it.

Also adding to the resentment is the EU's Agricultural
Commissioner's post-Doha declaration that the watering down of
the statement on the phasing out of agricultural export subsidies
was a "victory" for the EU--which many have taken to mean that
the EU will fight tooth and nail to keep the subsidies in the coming
agricultural negotiations.

There was also Washington's recent decision to slap tariffs of up to
40 per cent against steel imports, allegedly to counter dumping
activities but really to save their already highly protected steel
industry. Coming shortly after Doha, this is now seen by other
countries as an indication that Washington is not serious about the
renegotiation of the anti-dumping agreement it agreed to in Doha
and is intent on continuing to use its anti-dumping mechanisms to
prevent market access not only in steel but in textiles, garments,
and agricultural commodities.

Then there is the deepening global recession, which stems to a
great extent from the indiscriminate integration and interlocking of
economies brought about by trade liberalization. In both North and
South, there are emerging strong domestic pressures to protect
and salvage industries, creating a global climate that is
increasingly hostile to further trade liberalization.

These factors make the Doha outcome a fragile one, and a key
part of our task is find a way of bringing them together in an
effective way in the coming months to reverse the Doha dynamic.

THE CHAIRMAN'S STATEMENT: A KEY POINT OF CONTENTION
Having pointed to these "mitigating" factors, we must emphasize
that they merely mitigate what is a position of strategic
disadvantage for us, from which we need to extricate ourselves.
But as Martin Khor noted, NGOs fight best when they have their
backs against the wall. In this regard, one of the most promising
weapons is the Chairman's statement on negotiations on the new
issues, which will be the main area of contention. The Chairman's
statement appended to the final declaration, which was issued to
end India's opposition to the document, reads:

"Let me say that with respect to the reference to an 'explicit
consensus' being needed, in these paragraphs, for a decision to be
taken at the Fifth Session of the Ministerial Conference, my
understanding is that, at that session, a decision would indeed
need to be taken by explicit consensus, before negotiations on
trade and investment and trade and competition policy,
transparency in government procurement, and trade facilitation
could proceed.

"In my view, this would also give each member the right to take a
position on the modalities that would prevent negotiations from
proceeding after the Fifth Session of the Ministerial Conference
until that member is prepared to join in an explicit consensus."

I agree with those who say that the future of the new issues will
depend on how much weight will be attached to the Chairman's
statement and whose interpretation will win out. At a meeting we
had with European Commission officials right after our Brussels
review, on December 10, Philippe Meyer, head of the Unit on
Investments of the EC's Directorate-General for Trade, stated that
he was glad that the WTO members "had agreed to launch
negotiations on investment." This was, in my view intentional, and
part of a strategy to obscure the fact that both the Chairman's
statement and the Doha Declaration itself state that negotiations
will not be launched until after the Fifth Ministerial in 2003 and only
after there is an explicit consensus to launch negotiations.

Given this not-too-subtle offensive to define the process, it is
important for our side to loudly insist at every possible forum that:
1) negotiations cannot start until after the Fifth Ministerial; 2) that
negotiations can take place only if there is an explicit consensus
drawn from each and every country to undertake them; 3) that, as
the Chairman's statement makes clear, the absence of an explicit
consensus to start negotiations from even one member- country
will be sufficient to keep negotiations from proceeding; and 4) that
the Chairman's statement carries the same legal weight as the
Doha Declaration.

THE MISSING LINK
Let me move on to some comments about civil society and Doha.
Civil society was present in Doha in the form of some 60
representatives of genuine-as opposed to business and government-
controlled-NGOs. Their impact was, however, greater than their
numbers, with this band of hardy souls staging demonstrations and
direct actions right in the convention site, in a direct challenge to
both the Qatari and WTO authorities!

In comparison to Seattle, the protests this time around were really
global, taking place in some 40 countries on November 10-11 and
mobilizing hundreds of thousands of people. This show of
solidarity against corporate-driven globalization was impressive,
but, unfortunately, like the protests at the Doha Sheraton, it hardly
made a dent on the Doha process.

Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians has said that massing
on the streets in one location might no longer work in the future
since the multilaterals have learned their lessons from Seattle and
are likely to hold their get-togethers in isolated, distant sites. Doha
certainly proved the success of this strategy. Nevertheless, as
Maude would definitely agree, we cannot give up the streets, and
must, in fact, make greater efforts to assert our right to them in the
coming period, as governments and police seek to restrict the
rights of the anti-globalization movement under the guise of
opposing terrorists.

Despite the outcome of Doha, one cannot emphasize too strongly
the impact of the patient efforts of many groups in our coalition to
assist developing country delegations in Geneva to gain a better
technical and political understanding of WTO issues and
processes. Among the fruits of this cooperation was the proposal
to attach a "Development Box" to the Agreement on Agriculture
(AOA), which would exempt countries from undertaking
liberalization measures mandated by the WTO in order to achieve
food security and development objectives.

But the collapse of most of the developing countries at Doha owing
to intense pressure from the Quad and other developed countries
showed up the limitations of the street protest-cum-Geneva lobby
approach. As Raphael Alegria, Mariama Williams, and other
participants in the Brussels meeting regularly pointed out, there is
a missing element and that is the consistent pressure from social
movements on their governments. There is simply no alternative to
movements on the ground, in country after country, putting their
governments' feet to the fire. Unless this vacuum is filled, the next
ministerial will be a repeat of Doha.

Our work is really cut out for us, and we have only 15 to 18 months
before the Fifth Ministerial to get our act together: formulating and
setting into motion a strategy that innovatively brings together the
protests in the streets, intense delegation-by-delegation lobbying in
Geneva, and massive grassroots pressures on governments at
home.

SUMMARY
In summary, the main lessons from the Doha debacle are, in my
view:
- Doha set the bicycle of WTO-directed global trade liberalization
upright and back into motion.
- Doha was a defeat for developing countries, though they went into
the ministerial with a greater consciousness of common interests
and greater degree of unity than in the past.
- The September 11 context and the site of the ministerial
mattered, but it was the dirty high-pressure tactics of the US and
the EU in a non-transparent and non-democratic process that was
principally responsible for the outcome.
- The developed countries' victory at Doha is, however, a fragile one
that may be unravelled by the combination of continuing developing
country resentments at the non-transparent process, refusal of the
EU and the US to live up to their commitments in the declaration,
and growing resistance to further liberalization in both North and
South triggered by the accelerating and deepening global recession.
- The main front of battle in the coming months will be the new
issues, and the weight given to Chairman's statement appended to
the declaration and its interpretation will be a key factor
determining the outcome.
- Civil society intervention will continue to be an extremely critical
factor, and the outcome of the next ministerial and the whole
struggle against indiscriminate liberalization will depend on the
emergence of what is now the missing link: social movements that
mobilize to prevent their national governments from making
destructive concessions. What can make the difference is an
innovative strategy that combines street protests, the Geneva
lobbying, and grassroots pressures on home governments in a
coordinated fashion.

* Dr. Walden Bello is executive director of Focus on the Global
South in Bangkok, Thailand, and professor of sociology at the
University of the Philippines.

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