Doha is dead, but where's the alternative?

In a letter to the WTO earlier this month, 90 civil society organizations claim that the Doha round is dead:

'Ever since the launch of the Round in 2001, people all over the world, including farmers, fisherfolk, workers and trade unionists, environmentalists, faith-based groups and other civil society organizations, have been denouncing the Doha talks as paying little attention to peoples' rights and needs. “Doha was supposed to be the ‘development’ round. But what has transpired over the intervening six years has been quite the opposite”, the letter states.'

Nicholson of "The Australian" newspaper: www.nicholsoncartoons.com.au

The groups demand that the WTO must:

• Acknowledge the failure of the Doha Round
• Institute a two year moratorium to provide the time and space necessary to re-think the model and process of global trade negotiations.
• Stimulate public discussion and debate with governments and civil society about creating alternative trade regimes

Surely there aren't many people who would disagree with the fact that the Doha round is likely to be disappointing for developed and developing countries alike. Neither business nor civil society groups are going to be jumping for joy at the final result.

What bothers me is the lack of a convincing alternative. It maybe just that opposition is more newsworthy than a shiny new model WTO, but it seems that a significant plan hasn't been put forward. Criticizing the WTO is all very well, but let's offer something constructive in return.

Here are some thoughts about fixing the global trading system:

• Greater consultation with civil society at the international level is helpful, but representation at the national level is more important - e.g. the USTR's health related advisory committees have 42 members, only one of them is represents a public health organization.
  
• We need a solution that will also fix the WTO's jurisdictional problems. In short, the WTO needs some form of subsidiarity to prevent legitimate national and local policies from being overridden by international trade law.
• Key public services with legitimate social objectives should be excluded from WTO rules, using clear language. Because of the current blurred division of sectors in the negotiations, it is easy for a service to be excluded from the negotiations by a government, yet included inadvertantly in another sector that the government has decided to liberalize.
  
• Foreign investors should no longer be accorded greater rights than their domestic counterparts - at the moment, foreign investors can claim compensation for current or future profits lost as a result of changes in government policy. The definition of expropriation in trade law should be slimmed down to prevent this.

Now, does anybody have a magic wand?

Visit Holly's blog TradingLives for more trade posts.