World The trade body on Friday made a hard-won victory in a historic bundle of agreements secured through tough rounds of talks on fishing subsidies, food insecurity and COVID-19 vaccines.
WTO Director-General Ngoji Okonjo-Iwela said the trade ministers’ conference had struck an “unprecedented package of deliverables” that would make a difference in the lives of people across the planet.
The talks at the global trade body’s Geneva headquarters began on Sunday and were due to end on Wednesday.
But instead the WTO’s 164 members went straight through Friday, finally ending at around 5:00 pm (0300 GMT).
The ministerial conference also agreed on deals on e-commerce, responding to the pandemic and reforming the organisation.
“In a long time, the WTO has not seen such a significant number of multilateral outcomes,” Okonjo-Iwela said.
“The package of agreements you make will change the lives of people around the world. The results demonstrate that the WTO is indeed capable of responding to the emergencies of our times.”
With ministers struggling to conclude separate agreements on each topic, countries began making trade-offs to get multiple measures through a bigger deal.
– Big Fish Bargain Trap –
The fishing deal was the last deal to come on the line.
The delegation clashed in the early hours of Friday over the rejection of a key issue at the WTO summit.
For more than 20 years, the WTO has been in talks to encourage overfishing and ban subsidies that threaten the sustainability of the planet’s fish stocks.
Okonjo-Iwela, who took office in March 2021, focused her leadership on revitalizing the sclerotic organization.
Nigeria’s former foreign and finance minister has established herself as someone who can bang heads and do business at the same time.
The last ministerial conference in Buenos Aires in December 2017 was seen as a flop after any heavy deal was struck down.
The new WTO chief wanted to prove that the organization could still remain relevant in tackling major global challenges.
Some delegations alleged India Standing firm on every subject under discussion in the WTO – where decisions can only be passed with the consent of each member.
But Indian commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal insisted: “India is not a hindrance to anything … people are realizing that we were the ones who really helped build the only consensus.”
The second major issue on the table was the plan for the COVID-19 vaccine patent exemption.
Some countries that host major pharmaceutical companies, such as Britain and Switzerland, were finding some of the draft wording problematic, while big pharma feared a deal that would stifle innovation.
But Simon Manley, Britain’s ambassador to Geneva, told Okonjo-Iwela late on Thursday that London is “now ready to join the consensus”, after securing clarifications and reforms.
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