WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iwela, front left, applauds, next to Conference President Timur Suleymanov, second right, after the concluding session of the WTO Ministerial Conference at the WTO Headquarters in Geneva in the early hours of Friday, June 17, 2022.
Highlight
- WTO members have reached a number of deals and commitments aimed at limiting overfishing
- WTO Director-General Njogi Okonjo-Iwela concludes WTO ministerial conference in 4.5 years
- The members of the World Trade Organization for the first time in agreement with environmental sustainability, Okonjo-Iwela. he said
World Trade Organization (WTO) members have reached a string of deals and commitments aimed at over-fishing in developing countries, widening the production of COVID-19 vaccines and reforming the 27-year-old trade body, which recently is back on its heels. years.
WTO Director-General Njogi Okonjo-Iwela, after a couple of sleepless nights, concluded the WTO ministerial conference in 4-1/2 years, trumpeting a renewed spirit of cooperation at a time when The world has faced increasing crises. Food insecurity, the war in Ukraine and a once in a century pandemic that has killed millions.
“The package agreements you make will change the lives of people around the world,” Okonjo-Iwela said. “The results demonstrate that the WTO is indeed capable of responding to the emergencies of our times.”
Know some of the major achievements of the World Trade Organization meeting:
Among the main achievements of the 164-member trade body was an agreement, which fell short of full initial ambitions, to ban support for illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, and to ban support for overfishing in the world’s oceans. For. The World Trade Organization chief said on Friday that the agreement is a “first but important step” in curbing government subsidies and too many operators- in the fishing industry.
“WTO members have for the first time reached an agreement with environmental sustainability,” Okonjo-Iwela said.
“It is also about the livelihoods of the 260 million people who directly or indirectly depend on marine fisheries.”
Some controversies in the meeting of the World Trade Organization:
More controversial was the agreement over a plan to waive intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines, shunning advocacy groups that say it didn’t go far enough—and may even do more harm than good.
Regarding the exemption of intellectual property protection, Okonjo-Iwela said, “The TRIPS exemption agreement will contribute to ongoing efforts to focus and diversify vaccine manufacturing capacity so that a crisis in one region does not cut off others.”
Aid group Doctors Without Borders called it a “catastrophic global failure for the health of people around the world” after the agreement halted initial calls to include other tools to fight the coronavirus, including treatments and tests.
The meeting also agreed to lift export restrictions weighted on the United Nations World Food Program, which would address the impact of rising food prices and Russia’s war in Ukraine on shipments of a major producer of wheat, barely there and other foodstuffs. trying to remove. them.
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