World Trade Organisation Essay

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However, upon closer inspection of the issue, it is apparent that less than 40 members have been initiating complaints and that there are about 15 ‘main complainants’, 5 of which are developing nations (Brazil, India, Thailand, Chile, Argentina) accounting for 60% of all complaints made by developing nations. Although there is little doubt that there members are well able to use the system, it remains that the vast majority of developing nations (about 60-70 in total), have had no involvement in disputes at all. Least-developed countries and all African nations have hardly touched the system. This may be due to the abovementioned constraints like limited litigation experience, linguistic abilities and finance, as well as ‘power constraints’, such as possible retaliatory action by major players if their policies or measures were challenged in the WTO.

Analysis

It may be concluded that the WTO is making great efforts in the area of dispute resolution, to ensure equity amongst its member countries, with any disparity in settlement arising mainly due to reluctance on the part of developing/least-developed nations. Overall, developing nations are more participative now than before in this area, showing that the WTO is indeed seeking to contribute to sustainable development by ensuring the rights of the marginalised are protected.http://www.ictsd.org/themes/global-economic-governance/events/the-challenge-of-participating-in-wto-dispute-settlement

- Protection of Intellectual Property – TRIPS

Expectation

The TRIPS Agreement has been in force since 1995 and has global minimum standards for protecting and enforcing nearly all forms of intellectual property rights (IPR), including those for patents. At the time that negotiations began, over 40 countries in the world did not grant patent protection for pharmaceutical products. The TRIPS Agreement now requires all WTO members, with few exceptions, to adapt their laws to the minimum standards of IPR protection, so as to ensure that the high costs of developing new products are offset by the patent rights that the developers may enjoy.

Reality

TRIPS has been beneficial to both developed nations and transnational corporations, such as major pharmaceutical companies, as their inventions and patents are now protected across all WTO member nations.

However, the poorest in developing countries are unable to access affordable medicine because members have failed to clarify ambiguities between the need for governments to protect public health on one hand and on the other to protect the intellectual property rights of pharmaceutical companies. Although it may be argued that strong IP protection attracts investment to and fosters innovation in developing countries, non-governmental organisations (Oxfam, Medécins sans Frontières, and Third World Network) have criticised TRIPS on the grounds that it imposes various costs on developing countries - such as more expensive drugs, agricultural inputs and foreign-owned technologies - without producing sufficient longer-term gains in areas like trade and investment.

Many developing country governments are concerned that the legal standards required by TRIPS, especially for patents, may simply be too high for their countries at the present time. For example, they worry that having to extend IPR protection to advanced industrial fields such as biotechnology and information and communications technology will only benefit foreign businesses, since their domestic firms lack the capacity to innovate in this field. Being unable to freely copy such inventions, they feel, may hinder local firms' efforts to enhance their own technological capacity and become more innovative in the future.

Analysis

Although the liberalisation of trade may lead to violations of patents and copyrights, in the absence of strong IP protection laws, it also results in millions receiving no treatment for treatable diseases, due to the unaffordability of drugs. This brings about the ethical dilemma of which party’s needs should be protected over another’s. The WTO thus appears to be more concerned about free trade than fair trade.

Recently, however, the agreement has made it theoretically possible for a country to produce generic drugs legally in certain situations. The right of governments to produce generic drugs in the case of a public health emergency was included in TRIPS and was reinforced in 2001 when WTO ministers issued a ‘waiver’ that stated that intellectual property should not take precedence over public health. This shows that the WTO is moving in the direction of fairer trade, instead of free trade, in order to protect the people in developing/least-developed nations.

Expected Benefits to Specifically Developing/Least-Developed Nations

- Increase in Export-led Growth for Developing/Least-Developed Nations

The imposition of the new multilateral trading system would help developing countries to pursue export-led growth in three main sectors – agriculture, textiles and clothing and services. Agriculture Expectation

The Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) was drafted by the WTO in 1995. As most developing countries were low cost producers of agricultural goods, it was expected that these countries would significantly benefit from a more open and less distorted global agricultural trade regime. With this in mind, the AoA was designed to have three pillars—domestic support, market access, and export subsidies – that are controlled to improve developing nations’ trade in agriculture. Market Access: Developed countries are required to reduce their tariffs on agricultural imports from developing/least-developed countries, so as to increase market access for these countries.

Domestic support: Developed nations are required to cut their expenditure on domestic support for their local farmers and agribusinesses, by cutting subsidies, so as to prevent over-production, which would lead to oversupply and dumping by flooding the world market. Export subsidies: Developed nations are required to reduce their export subsidies so as to reduce their exports of agricultural products.

The table below shows the required cuts to be made by developed and developing countries.

Developed

countries

6 years: 1995-2000