Cautioning against diluting the special and differential treatment (S&D) provisions for developing nations at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), a recent communication by Benin, on behalf of African nations, Bolivia, China, Cuba, India and Oman, said developing nations should continue to enjoy those benefits or else it would lead to ‘intractable deadlock’ at WTO.

The developing nations must be allowed to make their own assessments regarding their own developing country status, the communication said.

The nations also stated that the existing S&D provisions must be upheld and it should be provided in the current and future WTO negotiations, according to a news agency report.

"Attempts to water down these principles would be a recipe for intractable deadlock at the WTO, including in the negotiations on fisheries subsidies. It is in the interest of the entire membership to avoid this situation," the communication dated October 8 said.

The S&D allows developing countries to enjoy certain benefits including taking longer time periods for implementing agreements and binding commitments, and measures to increase trading opportunities for them.

Any WTO member can designate itself as a developing country and avail these benefits at present.

The United States had suggested that self-declaration puts the WTO on a path to failed negotiations and it is also a path to institutional irrelevance.

It further said that any unilateral action depriving developing members including least developed countries (LDCs) of treaty-embedded rights would be inconsistent with members' obligations, and would in fact erode the foundation of the multilateral trading system which functions on the basis of being 'rules-based'. This will cause lasting and systemic damage to the trading system, it added.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)

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