13th WTO Min­is­te­r­ial Con­fer­ence: Tough strug­gle for a min­i­mum con­senus

Dis­rup­tions in global sup­ply chains, pro­tec­tion­ism and geopo­lit­i­cal crises – re­cently, the mul­ti­lat­eral trad­ing sys­tem and its guardian, the World Trade Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WTO), have not been at their best. This is all the more re­gret­table for the WTO’s host coun­try, Switzer­land. After all, as a small ex­port­ing coun­try, we are par­tic­u­larly de­pen­dent on rules-based mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism. It is often for­got­ten: Trade lib­er­al­iza­tion achieved via the WTO is still clearly the first-best so­lu­tion for Switzer­land and its com­pa­nies – even be­fore bi­lat­eral and pluri­lat­eral agree­ments.

Ex­pec­ta­tions for the WTO’s 13th Min­is­te­r­ial Con­fer­ence (MC13), which took place this week in Abu Dhabi, were low in view of the frag­men­ta­tion trends in world trade. Would the WTO's high­est de­ci­sion-mak­ing body still be able to de­liver re­sults? The agenda of the 166 mem­ber states was cer­tainly ex­ten­sive: from the re­form of the dis­pute set­tle­ment sys­tem to in­vest­ment fa­cil­i­ta­tion for de­vel­op­ing coun­tries, dig­i­tal trade, the pro­tec­tion of in­tel­lec­tual prop­erty to agri­cul­ture and fish­eries.

At the end of MC13, it is clear that al­though the progress made is mod­est from the per­spec­tive of Swiss for­eign trade, in­di­vid­ual re­sults were nev­er­the­less achieved and, above all, set­backs were avoided.

WTO RE­FORM: REAF­FIR­MA­TIONS BUT NO SO­LU­TIONS (YET)

For years, Switzer­land has been work­ing with 13 other coun­tries within the Ot­tawa Group to im­prove the three core func­tions of the WTO (mon­i­tor­ing of rules and con­sul­ta­tion, ne­go­ti­a­tions and dis­pute set­tle­ment). As the In­ter­na­tional Cham­ber of Com­merce (ICC) em­pha­sizes, a re­form of the WTO is also a key con­cern of com­pa­nies world­wide. After all, they are the «ul­ti­mate end-users of the global trad­ing sys­tem». At MC13, mem­ber states em­pha­sized their de­ter­mi­na­tion to reach an agree­ment by the end of 2024. How­ever, no ma­jori­ties could be found for so­lu­tions, par­tic­u­larly with re­gard to the dis­pute set­tle­ment sys­tem blocked by the USA.

IN­VEST­MENT FA­CIL­I­TA­TION FOR DE­VEL­OP­ING COUN­TRIES

More­over, Switzer­land was able to make an im­por­tant con­tri­bu­tion in the area of in­vest­ments for de­vel­op­ing coun­tries. In the run-up to MC13, to­gether with 120 coun­tries, it agreed to a pluri­lat­eral agree­ment aimed at re­mov­ing bu­reau­cratic hur­dles for in­vest­ments in de­vel­op­ing coun­tries (In­vest­ment Fa­cil­i­ta­tion for De­vel­op­ment, IFD). Swiss com­pa­nies op­er­at­ing abroad will also greatly ben­e­fit from sim­pli­fied and more trans­par­ent au­tho­riza­tion pro­ce­dures. The aim now is to help the IFD agree­ment achieve a break­through in the mul­ti­lat­eral frame­work as well.

IM­POR­TANT STEP IN DIG­I­TAL TRADE

An­other ray of hope at MC13 con­cerns dig­i­tal trade – an area that is rapidly gain­ing in im­por­tance world­wide. At the last minute, the par­tic­i­pat­ing coun­tries were able to agree to ex­tend the mora­to­rium on cus­toms du­ties on elec­tronic trans­mis­sions (e.g. films, e-books or video games) for a fur­ther two years. This is a good sign for com­pa­nies and con­sumers alike. Some coun­tries – in­clud­ing India, South Africa and In­done­sia – had spo­ken out in favor of end­ing the mora­to­rium.

NO EX­TEN­SION OF THE TRIPS-WAIVER TO THER­A­PEU­TICS AND DI­AG­NOS­TICS

Fi­nally, it was ea­gerly awaited whether dis­cus­sions on the Agree­ment on Trade-Re­lated As­pects of In­tel­lec­tual Prop­erty Rights (TRIPS) would take place at MC13. Un­for­tu­nately, last year's min­is­te­r­ial con­fer­ence de­cided to soften patent pro­tec­tion for Covid-19 vac­cines (a so-called «TRIPS waiver»). An ex­ten­sion of this «TRIPS waiver» to ther­a­peu­tics and di­ag­nos­tics at MC13 was ini­tially sought by some coun­tries, but ul­ti­mately did not ma­te­ri­al­ize. This is an im­por­tant sig­nal for Switzer­land as a cen­ter of in­no­va­tion and re­search. After all, the pan­demic has shown that patent pro­tec­tion has not hin­dered ac­cess to vac­cines, but rather made their rapid de­vel­op­ment pos­si­ble in the first place. In the in­ter­ests of health­care, Swiss trade diplo­macy must there­fore con­tinue to cam­paign against the ero­sion of in­tel­lec­tual prop­erty rights.