Race For WTO Director-General Job: Seven Candidates Speak
CUTS-TradeForum
From: CUTS International
Odds favour Brazilian candidate for WTO DG
By Sandeep Dikshit, The Hindu, April 15, 2013
South Korea a strong candidate, India has not declared its stand
With odds favouring a Brazilian, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) could have a person from a developing country as the next Director General (DG) when the results of a nine-way race will be declared towards the end of May, according to government officials. Candidates backed by their respective governments are making the rounds of national capitals to garner support.
Officially, India has not disclosed its stand. It maintained this position when Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff brought along her country’s nominee, Roberto Carvalho de Azevedo to the post, to the Fifth BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) Summit last month in Durban. India had demurred at her suggestion of the BRICS formally backing Mr. de Azevedo by declaring that such a move could be premature.
Developed countries, though, have not given up. Given their economic clout in the form of aid packages and dominance of their corporates in many poorer countries, they can cajole and cut deals in favour of their candidate. Although 75 per cent of the candidates are from developing countries, the developed ones have already started sending coded signals about choosing one of their own — Tim Groser from New Zealand and Taeho Bark of South Korea.
“Merit-based” selection
They are doing this by announcing that the selection should be “merit-based”. This is a code for the West’s opposition to the developing countries’ demand for affirmative action at least at the WTO. South Korea, a developed country on the back of annual per capita income of $30,000, could also be a strong candidate if the Kiwi fails to get much support.
Aware of this drawback, Seoul’s campaign message says it has enough experience on both sides of the fence-it was a struggling, developing country once and is today almost in the ranks of the emerged ones-and could, therefore, serve as a bridge between the two worlds.
Pascal Lemy is the incumbent WTO DG and who has served two four-year terms. In its nearly 20 years of existence, Supachai Panitchpakdi of Thailand has been the only DG from the developing world. His election was not only aimed to fulfil the developing countries’ desire to have more say at the global stage but to also mollify some traditional western allies in the developing world. They were upset after “White British Commonwealth’s Mike Moore of New Zealand beat him in the 1999 elections, marked by backstabbing and unkept promises.
Seoul feels the heat
The South Korean candidate is already facing questions. Others want Seoul to back down because South Korean Ban ki-Moon is the incumbent United Nations (UN) Secretary General.
Similarly, Indonesia, a member of the 10-nations Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), is being told that Singapore, one of its group members, occupies the top slot at United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). Another ASEAN representative, a Thai, is the head of UN Council on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) though the Indonesian candidate Mari Elka Pangestu is rated as good and recently met External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid to press her case.
Africa is still undecided on whom to support-Alan John Kyerematen from Ghana or the well-regarded Amina Mohamed of Kenya? Similarly, there are three candidates from Latin America making it hard for the Continent. The current assessment is that Mr.de Azevedo, the former Brazilian Permanent Representative at WTO, seems to be the frontrunner. Jordan’s Ahmad Hindawi was the first to throw his hat in the ring but his campaign is now struggling.
Developing countries have been attempting to ease the stranglehold of the developed world over global governance and financial institutions the Asian Development Bank boss is invariably from Japan and the Europeans and the Americans have decided top posts at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank among themselves. Officials, however, feel that there is “now an overall movement among developing countries for loosening the grip of the rich countries over such institutions, except the UN.”
Questions for the world’s next trade chief
By Robert Zoellick, Financial Times, April 1, 2013
If it does not act, the WTO is at risk of being pushed aside.
Starting this month, the 159 economies of the World Trade Organisation will begin the selection of a new director-general. Instead of the usual practice of a selection based on personality and nationality, the nine candidates for WTO chief need to answer questions of policy leadership.
Pascal Lamy, the current director-general, made every effort to complete the Doha round of global trade negotiations. But that deal, launched in 2001, has foundered on differences between developed economies and major emerging markets. As a result, the WTO is at risk of being pushed aside.
The action is shifting to other venues, with the announcement of a US-EU trade negotiation being just the most recent. The next DG needs to have a policy agenda to modernise trade multilateralism to meet new challenges. I urge that each candidate should be assessed by the substance of their answers to five questions, which are drawn from the work of Gary Hufbauer and Jeffrey Schott of the Peterson Institute.
First, will you push for a “small package”, drawn from the Doha negotiations, of special benefit to poorer countries? The years of work have identified potential deals, starting with removing quotas and tariffs on almost all the exports of the least developed countries, which account for less than 1 per cent of world trade.
Given the changing outlook for world agriculture – a shift from chronic surpluses to increased demand – the WTO could end agricultural export subsidies and exempt humanitarian aid from food export controls, as the Group of 20 recommends. The WTO has also identified steps to facilitate trade through streamlined documentation and customs procedures. And the package could include reforms to the WTO dispute settlement process that would boost transparency and encourage speedy decisions with more settlements. Such a package would benefit the most vulnerable economies, while demonstrating that the WTO can still do business.
Second, will you encourage the completion of an international services agreement that offers reciprocal liberalisation to all economies willing to join? Some topics – such as the rapidly increasing services trade – have been held back because all WTO members are not yet willing to commit to openings. But when the WTO stalls, the dealmaking moves elsewhere. The global trading system should encourage “liberalisation by the willing” with others joining when ready. The services trade is increasingly important to boosting productivity in developing countries seeking to avoid the “middle-income trap” and to lowering costs of critical infrastructure development.
Third, will you support zero-for-zero “plurilateral” accords that bind all signatories to eliminating tariffs and other barriers reciprocally, sector-by-sector? For example, the information technology agreement of 1996 led to a boom in global sourcing and supply chains for IT products, by getting rid of barriers to trade in this sector. But its list of goods needs to be updated for the digital age, and the ITA II should include services. If the WTO does not create opportunities to conclude new liberalising deals within its framework, the action – and the creation of new rules for new issues – will move elsewhere.
Fourth, are you willing to press for principles to require fair dealing by state-owned enterprises? The increased importance of SOEs in the world economy – in financial services, telecommunications, steel, chemicals and energy, and other natural resources – requires new rules so that private businesses can compete fairly with state capitalism. The rules need not push privatisation or rollbacks of state enterprises, but they should require transparency, commercial behaviour, declarations of subsidies, non-discrimination and open procurement. As sovereign wealth funds discovered after they signed the Santiago principles in 2008, agreed, transparent rules build acceptance in the international system. Without such rules, many state enterprises, which seek to trade and invest abroad, will find themselves subject to new barriers.
Finally, will you agree to launch a discussion with the International Monetary Fund about the application of the existing WTO and IMF rules requiring that exchange rates shall not be manipulated to gain unfair trade advantage? Given the extraordinary monetary policies spawned by the financial crisis – and the risks of competitive devaluations of currencies – multilateral bodies should not abdicate responsibility on these questions. If multilateralism fails, unilateralism may prevail. Brazil has already urged the WTO to discuss these questions.
The WTO members need to face up to the key trade policy questions of the day, even if they do not yet agree on the answers. If the WTO members do not select a new leader with an agenda, global trade diplomacy will drift and other negotiations will fill the vacuum. A substantive selection process can give the WTO chief a mandate to get things done. That is what good global governance should be about.
From: CUTS International
What Does the WTO Need From its Next DG?
WTO is going through a leadership transition as Pascal Lamy, Director-General (DG), is completing his second four-year term on September 1, 2013. Who replaces him matters. First, because the WTO is not generating the trade liberalization and policy reforms that will stimulate investment and job creation—a key issue given the grim economic situation today. Second, to safeguard past achievements: the rules-based multilateral regime was created to help prevent a recurrence of nationalistic trade policies and conflict. It provides a platform for communication and for nations to sit down together to agree on rules of the game and resolve disputes in a peaceful manner. It is critical there be a strong voice that reminds all stakeholders why the system was created.
Join the discussion on the GGP Network with key actors like Robert Zoellick, former World Bank President.
To read, please visit:
http://network.globalgovernanceprogramme.eu/what-does-the-wto-need-from-its-next-dg/
From: CUTS International
Race For WTO Director-General Job: Seven Candidates Speak
Edited by Bernard M. Hoekman, European University Institute, CEPR & ERF and Petros C. Mavroidis, European University Institute
The WTO Membership is going through a leadership transition. After eight years at the helm the incumbent Director-General, Pascal Lamy, steps down on 1 September 2013. Nine individuals from different parts of the globe, all with extensive experience in the area of trade policy, have been nominated by their governments to replace him. The set of candidates includes three women, four current Ministers in the sitting governments of their countries, and three others with Ministerial experience.
In a new VoxEU eBook seven of the candidates lay out their views on the challenges confronting the WTO and how to address them. Taken together, they provide a uniquely comprehensive view of the world’s trade governance problems. It will be an important reference long after the selection process ends.
To read, please visit: http://www.voxeu.org/article/pay-attention-wto-leadership-contest-it-matters
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