World Trade Organization 14th Ministerial Conference Outcomes: Small wins, progress on reform, and digital trade as deal-breaker

Fisheries Subsidies

Members celebrated the entry into force of the 2022 Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies, which bans support to illegal fishing, to the fishing of already depleted stocks without efforts to restore them, and to unregulated fishing on the high seas. The MC14 decision reinforced members’ collective commitment to complete the unfinished parts of the deal, with additional disciplines on subsidies that contribute to overcapacity and overfishing more broadly. The decision was not a given; Indonesia insisted that its concerns regarding the interaction of the 2022 agreement and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea be registered, which, in the end, was done by distributing its statement formally as a Ministerial Conference document. 

"WTO members have sent a clear political signal that concluding further rules to curb subsidized overfishing remains a priority. Now, they need to get back to work to make this renewed commitment a reality," says IISD expert Tristan Irschlinger.

Development Issues 

Ministers also approved decisions that had been concluded in Geneva regarding work on the special and differential treatment provisions of the WTO's Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement and the Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement. The Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement governs trade measures imposed for food safety and animal or plant health, for example, so that vegetable imports don't carry pests or diseases. The Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement governs trade measures that impose other kinds of technical rules, like general product safety requirements. The ongoing work is meant to make the provisions more operational and effective, for instance by addressing the reality that many developing countries lack the capacity to respond quickly to measures their trading partners notify by providing longer comment periods for new measures being introduced. Ministers also approved a decision on enhancing the participation of small economies in global trade.

As the political stakes rose, however, decisions got harder. 

WTO Reform

After several long nights, ministers managed to agree on a direction for the WTO reform discussions that have gained pace in Geneva over the last few months. Talks will continue to focus on decision making at the WTO, development, and what are called "level playing field" issues.

Members are debating how different decisions at the WTO should be made, and how the principle of agreeing by consensus can be maintained but perhaps modified for different kinds of decisions. Development talks largely centre on how the principle of special and differential treatment should apply, given members' different development realities, while the discussion on levelling the playing field looks at the impact of, and responses to, more interventionist economic policies and growing priorities like climate change and the digital economy. The discussions will be reported back to the General Council every 6 months until MC15. 

Getting to this level of detail was no small feat in the current political environment. "MC14 stabilized a balanced reform agenda for an honest conversation among WTO members about a new set of rules to play by," says IISD Director of Trade Alice Tipping. "This is an important achievement that needs to be turned into action." 

Formal adoption of the reform agenda, however, was conditioned on agreement to rules on customs duties on digital trade, and here agreement proved impossible. 

E-commerce and Intellectual Property Rights Moratoria

The most immediately significant decision on the table was the extension of the confusingly named e-commerce moratorium, which is essentially an agreement that governments will not impose customs duties on electronic transmissions that travel across borders. What exactly is meant by "electronic transmissions" has never been clear. The concept likely covers digitized goods, like downloadable books, but it could also include the content of streaming services. The key point of disagreement at the Ministerial was whether the moratorium should be extended, and if so, for how long. The United States led pressure for a permanent moratorium, but several developing countries were firmly opposed, citing a need for policy space. The facilitator’s draft for a decision at the Ministerial listed options for an extension between 4 and 6 years, but agreement wasn't reached. 

Another issue, quickly linked to the e-commerce moratorium, was a moratorium on non-violation complaints (NVCs) under the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement. NVCs are complaints that may be brought against a member even where the member is acting legally under WTO rules, but nullifies or impairs expected trade benefits for another member. The NVC clause prevents these kinds of complaints from being brought. Early in the conference, some developing countries linked the timelines of the two moratoria, so that if they were obliged to agree to a longer e-commerce moratorium, they would also get a longer TRIPS NVC moratorium. In the end, neither were agreed. 

Also not agreed was a long-fought decision that would provide least developed countries (LDCs) with extended special trade treatment under WTO agreements after they graduate from LDC to developing country status. 

The fact that disagreements over digital trade policy blocked other major issues at the Ministerial outcomes is partly a result of the agenda on the table but also demonstrates how the stakes on the issue have risen, notes IISD expert Rashmi Jose. "Digital trade is becoming a central issue in the politics of trade policy," says Jose. "The range of digital trade issues, and their importance on the WTO agenda, is only going to grow." 

The Plurilaterals at MC14

Participants in the plurilateral Investment Facilitation for Development Agreement, now counting 129 WTO members, once again requested the incorporation of the text into the WTO's treaty framework. Türkiye's minister took the floor in the opening plenary of the Ministerial to lift his country's objection to the decision, leaving only India, which remained resolutely opposed. 

Participants in the E-Commerce Joint Statement Initiative, which includes 66 WTO members, announced the adoption of a set of interim arrangements that will enable their agreement to come into force and be implemented, even as they continue to aim to have the agreement woven into the WTO's treaty system. 

Back in Geneva…

Exhausted diplomats woke after overnight flights home to find that decisions on the WTO reform package, as well as the e-commerce and TRIPS non-violation moratoria and on LDC issues, had been sent back to the General Council for further work. The e-commerce moratorium, which was due to expire at the end of March, presumably now has, at least unless and until members agree to reinstate it at the General Council's next meeting in May.

The lead-up to this meeting will be important to watch. The General Council has often been mandated to take procedural and institutional decisions about organizing work or funding. It has very rarely, if ever, been specifically tasked with taking substantive decisions that could not be agreed at the Ministerial level. That said, it has the authority to do so. Looking across the issues, the priority should be reaching a deal that enables fundamentally important discussions about the reform of the WTO, with its hard-fought and delicately balanced agenda, to move forward.