WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement falls apart

On 31 July 2014, WTO Director General Roberto Azevêdo reported to WTO ambassadors that despite intensive consultations, “we have not been able to find a solution that would allow us to bridge the gap” on the adoption of the protocol on the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA). He urged members “to reflect long and hard on the ramifications of this setback”.

The Director General, obviously frustrated converted a Heads of Delegation General Council meeting to an informal Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC) meeting, and brought the delegations up to date on the events that had transpired over the days before the 31 July deadline that had been set in Bali for a TFA protocol. He asked “If anyone has an idea which has not already been proposed or tested then please inform the General Council chair that this may still be doable. But, as I say, I have no indication that this is the case. “

He continued:

On the one side we have the firm conviction, shared by many, that the decisions that ministers reached in Bali cannot be changed or amended in any way — and that those decisions have to be fully respected. And on the other side of the debate we have some who believe that those decisions leave unresolved concerns that need to be addressed in ways that, in the view of others, change the balance of what was agreed in Bali. These are the two sides.

He asked the delegations to use the August hiatus to reflect on the ramifications of the setback, which he said went far beyond the TFA, especially for the smaller and more vulnerable economies.  He said he would be meeting with various delegations and hoped that delegates would “take the time to reflect and come back in September,” presumably with meaningful suggestions.