No compromise on special and differential treatment

As difficult as it may seem, Caricom may have to abandon their consistent call for Special and Differential Treatment (S&D) when the 5th World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial Conference is held in Canc?n, Mexico, next month.

Special and differential treatment is a concept, defended most vigorously by Caricom, that argues that developing nations ought to be exempted from implementing many of the trade obligations established by the WTO because of these countries’ special circumstances and vulnerabilities. Aware of the devastating impact the WTO ruling on bananas has had on the mono-crop economies of many Windward Islands, the call for S&D appears to be more compelling. However, Dr Don Marshall, who was part of a four-member top academic team researching the future of S&D for the Association of Caribbean States (ACS), said developed countries find S&D difficult to accept because it is “contrary to the spirit of free trade.”

Furthermore, he argued that countries pushing for S&D should make greater use of the provisions already existing within the WTO for a similar type of exemption treatment but “without the S&D label.” According to Dr Marshall, cases can be put before the WTO on particular sectors, products and industries. However, “trying to win carte blanche removal of an entire sector, like in the case of the Windward Islands for bananas, is not going to work.” What the Barbadian UWI research fellow and his team of Dr Patsy Lewis, Dr Pat Northover and Dr Lucy Eugene of the Mona Campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI) have recommended in their paper, is a push for more compensatory financing and not for special and differential treatment. They have recommended to the ACS that the region should seek some kind of compensatory or adjustment financing to support industries that will come under pressure as a result of trade liberalisation.

Concessional bargaining, the social scientist insisted, is going to be the order of the day at Canc?n. “If you win concessions in one area, you are going to have to give concessions in others.”  However, Nicole Clarke, one of the island’s trade negotiators, said Barbados could not possibly abandon its position on S&D. “I don’t think that any developed country partner would seek to dispute the importance or relevance of special and differential treatment at the level of principle,” she argued. Furthermore, the diplomat stressed that S&D has not become an irrelevant and tired issue. “I don’t think it is an issue that developing countries as a whole or Barbados in particular could ever abandon because, made, at the end of the day, there isn’t a level playing field.

“Once you know there is not a level playing field you have to have some sort of recognition of that inequality and give people mechanisms to overcome those difficulties,” Clarke stated. The Barbadian diplomat disputed any suggestion that developing countries were philosophising on the issue of S&D. The negotiator insisted that it would be denying reality to believe that there is no case for S&D. “It is certainly not a case where we exaggerate or misrepresent the challenges we face. There are real problems that Barbados and the other countries in the region face as a result of our smallness and I don’t think people can dispute that. “I don’t think that because people choose not to make the kind of movement we would like them to make, that we must necessarily accept that our case is not valid. Our case is as valid today as it was yesterday.” “It is not a luxury we are indulging in – it is life or death to us . . .” she said.