John Hilary, "Time to kill of Doha", The Guardian, November 25, 2009

Résumé du document

This article entitled "Time to kill off Doha? was published in The Guardian on November 25, 2009. This centre-left newspaper is in favor of regulated form of trade that would enforce respect of social and environmental standards and fight against poverty and social inequalities. This article is clearly in line with The Guardian's views as it denounces the WTO's past rounds of trade liberalization, which mostly benefit the richest countries and not the poorest ones. We question if such a reform of the multilateral trade system is necessary before sustainable development objectives can be met throughout the world.

Extraits

[...] Two years later, during the fourth ministerial conference in Doha (Qatar, December 2001) a number of oppositions also arose. They put forward a program for the development of Doha working towards the improvement of special and differentiated treatment in favor of developing countries, as well as a system of technical assistance to reinforce their commercial capacities. However the integration of Under Developed Countries (UDC) in world commerce was subject of a simple declaration of principles, omitting any details on the methods employed. [...]

[...] The European Comission considers this concept as a strategy to enhance flexibility and security in the labour market. Flexicurity is also seen as a way to preserve the European social model while maintaining and improving the competitiveness, in the aim of sustainable development. However to achieve such an effort from every firm, a reform of the WTO seems useless, as it regards the will of each one to engage or not in helping the less developed countries and acting against global warming. And unfortunately most of these still only think of their possible gains. [...]

[...] Indeed, too strong a liberalisation could put the less developed countries in danger as they have less protection than other countries; instead of protecting these less developed countries, the more developed countries will take advantage of their vulnerability to relocate and make a large a profit as possible. One no longer talks of free trade but unfair trade. In order for global reforms to be effective, an equilibrium must be found so that each country can compete equally and in order to do this, national reforms must first be progressively harmonised. [...]

[...] More generally, this article concerns the future of the WTO as a credible institution. After the many problems caused by previous rounds of trade talks, we must ask if an alternative is not necessary because today, a lot of people call for the talks to be abandoned. At the beginning, the article focuses on the fact that previous rounds of the WTO have created many problems while solving few. The author then goes on to detail the growing opposition movement to the WTO. [...]

[...] It is true that competition is a driver for innovation and is considered to be capable of guaranteeing the more attractive prices for consumers. But in reality this only profits 20% of the population, pushing the other 80% deeper into poverty, increasing the gap between the rich and poor, increasing the number of refugees, global warming and ecological deterioration. Therefore the problem comes not from the WTO but from the abusive competitivity of each country. In this case, reforming the system doesn't seem necessary to achieve the objectives of durable development in the world. [...]