World Trade Organization stands striking global trade deals into the overtime

June 20, 2022: -On Friday, the World Trade Organization’s 164 members approved a series of early trade agreements that included commitments on fish and pledges on health and nutrition security after more than five grueling negotiations.

The deals were ground out better than five days of bargaining at a conference of over 100 trade ministers as a test of the capacity of nations to strike multilateral trade deals between geopolitical tensions heightened by the Ukraine war.

On Friday, Delegates cheered after passing the package of six agreements just before dawn.

Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told them, “The package of agreements reaching is which makes a reputation in the lives of people around the world. The results are demonstrating that the WTO is, in fact, capable of responding to crises of our time.”

Earlier, she appealed to WTO members to believe the “delicate balance” required after round-the-clock talks extending for an extra two days and has been charged with anger and charges at times.

At one stage, a series of demands from India, seeing itself as the champion of poor farmers, fishers, and producing countries, appeared to paralyze talks. Still, concessions lived found, trading sources said.

The WTO’s rules dictate that all the findings are accepted by consensus, with any single partner able to exercise a veto.

The package, which Okonjo-Iweala known as “unprecedented,” included the two highest-profile deals under examination on fisheries and a partial waiver of intellectual belongings rights for Covid-19 vaccines.

The accord to curb fishing subsidies is the second multilateral agreement setting unique global trading rules in the WTO’s 27-year history. It is far more ambitious than the first, prepared to cut red tape.

The fishing subsidies deal can potentially change the collapse of fish stocks. Though pared back, it still marked clearance.

“This is a turning point which manages one of the fundamental drivers of global over-fishing,” said The Pew Charitable Trusts’ campaign manager to reduce fisheries subsidies.

The deal on a partial IP waiver permitting generating countries to produce and export Covid-19 vaccines has separated from the WTO for nearly two years but finally passed. It has drawn the fiercest criticism from campaign groups that it slightly expands on an existing exemption in WTO rules and is narrow by not covering therapeutics and diagnostics.

“Put simply, it is a technocratic fudge seeking at saving reputations, not lives,” said Max Lawson, Co-Chair of the People’s Vaccine Alliance.