WTO Director-General Upbeat About Support for Fisheries Accord, as US, India Critical

World Trade Organization Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said there is now political support to move forward on an agreement to curb subsidies that lead to overfishing. The draft text has been blessed by all the heads of delegations in Geneva, she said in a news conference July 15.

“We recognize that there were many issues listed with respect to the text, gaps that need to be filled, differences that members have to bridge,” she said, but she said she believes member countries can reach agreement before the next ministerial meeting. In a press release, she said, "The prospect for a deal in the autumn ahead of our Ministerial Conference has clearly improved.” If they do arrive at one, it would be the first agreement in a generation that applies to all member countries.

Speeches from U.S. and India officials did not sound as sanguine. When asked at the ministerial meeting if the text has the basic elements of the landing zones necessary to reach a conclusion, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said that while “it does include some of the basic elements needed to reach a meaningful conclusion, our work is not yet done, as other key elements are still missing.” She cited significant shortcomings, pointing to special and differential treatment for developing countries. Okonjo-Iweala said all the countries agree that artisanal fishermen and women in developing countries should be exempt. “Flexibilities for certain developing country members with demonstrated needs can serve a valid purpose,” Tai said.

“However, these negotiations are about prohibiting harmful fisheries subsidies and should not result in an outcome that locks in the status quo or, worse, provides the WTO’s blessing to continue providing such subsidies -- without regard to sustainability -- in perpetuity,” Tai said.

“The United States believes that a blanket approach with permanent carveouts is neither appropriate nor effective given the purpose of this agreement,” she said. In what seemed to be a veiled reference to China, Tai also said one of the largest producers and subsidizers is also a self-declared developing country despite being one of the most significant members at the WTO.

India, which is not a major contributor to the problem of subsidized overfishing, argued that it should be allowed to subsidize in the future, since other countries had decades to do so.

India's Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal told the meeting that “Countries like India who are yet to develop fishing capabilities, cannot be expected to sacrifice their future ambitions, while protecting those members providing huge subsidies and overexploiting fisheries resources and continue to engage in unsustainable fishing.

“Second, the sustainability based approach in the Overcapacity and Overfishing pillar in the current form will create significant inequity for developing countries. Clearly, it will lead to capacity constraints for developing countries, while advanced nations will continue to grant subsidies. This is unequal, unfair, unjust.”

Limiting special and differential treatment (S&DT) “to poor and artisanal fishermen only is neither appropriate, nor affordable and not acceptable at all. S&DT has to be for a country as a whole,” Goyal said. “We need S&DT to not only protect livelihoods of poor fishermen but also to address food security concerns of a nation, have the necessary policy space for developing the fisheries sector and for the time required to put in place systems to implement the disciplines.”

Colombian Ambassador Santiago Wills said during the news conference that while members don't want the agreement to inadvertently undermine the livelihood of poor artisanal fishers, they also don't want to undermine the sustainability objective by granting too broad exemptions.

“Maintaining the status quo is not an option,” he said. “If we continue for another 20 years, there won't be any fish left.”

When pressed by a reporter on how she can say there's agreement when the U.S. and India are saying such different things about special and differential treatment, Okonjo-Iweala said the exception for artisanal fishers will not be the only plank of S&DT. “We will know more as negotiations continue,” she said.