Geneva – The new chair of the Doha rules negotiations on fisheries subsidies Ambassador Einar Gunnarsson of Iceland yesterday delivered an upbeat assessment on the “second wave” of negotiations on the most crucial pillar of harmful subsidies granted for overcapacity and overfishing, emphasizing the need to finalize “principles” and a “conceptual” approach.
At a plenary meeting, Ambassador Gunnarsson orally shared the proposed work program, wherein he outlined five “fish weeks” of intensive negotiations starting from March 20. There also will likely be a fish and development retreat and a new approach to arrive at principles/concepts.
He also spelled out some controversial issues such as forced labor raised by the United States, non-specific fuel subsidies (raised by India) and subsidies contingent upon fishing or fishing-related activities outside the jurisdiction of a coastal member, said people after attending the meeting.
“In all, I held more than 30 bilateral sessions, and they were uniformly positive in tone,” the chair said, suggesting members showed “great enthusiasm to fully re-engage, and to work hard to fulfil the mandate that we received from ministers at MC12.”
The chair held consultations during February 8-15 with delegations representing individual members and groups of members about how to organize work for the second wave of fisheries subsidies negotiations.
“I view this enthusiasm and sense of importance and connection to a bigger picture as essential to enabling conditions for us to complete the second wave of negotiations in the available time. This makes me optimistic that we will be able to submit a minister-ready draft outcome by the next WTO Ministerial Conference, one year from now,” Ambassador Gunnarsson said.
Ambassador Gunnarsson informed members that he would anchor his consultations and negotiations on the principles of transparency and inclusivity. He suggested that members should not
wait for green room meetings to resolve issues, as was the case in the WTO’s 12th ministerial conference held last June, where a large majority of members were kept out of the green room meetings to arrive at final decisions, said people who preferred not to be identified.
WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has repeatedly squashed statements about two- thirds of members were kept out of the green room meetings.
Ambassador Gunnarsson emphasized the need for rapid ratification of the protocol concerning the new discipline for illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. The second wave/round will deal with several difficult issues including the timeframe and the asymmetries in disciplines in the crucial pillar of overcapacity and overfishing, particularly the specific carveouts granted to big subsidizers like China, the European Union, the United States, Canada, Japan, Korea and Taiwan among others in Article 5.1 and 5.11, and appropriate and effective special and differential treatment demanded by a large majority of developing countries based on the United Nation Sustainable Development Goal 14.6, said people who asked not to be quoted.
Apparently, no member took the floor to raise specific concerns at the plenary meeting, as the chair has already held more than 30 bilateral meetings before the meeting to understand members’ specific concerns, said people who asked not to be quoted.
The new agreement will remain only on paper and ‘static’ for all purposes without an immediatevalue until an accompanying protocol is ratified by two-thirds of WTO members when they submit their instruments.
Normally, the ratification process is time-drawn process and it may take several years going by the past records of the Doha public health agreement and trade facilitation agreement.
Nine months of signing the fisheries subsidies agreement, only two friends of the system – Switzerland and Singapore – signed the protocol. And for the June protocol to come into effect, two-thirds members have to ratify it as per paragraph 3 of Article X of the Marrakesh Agreement.
Iceland, which is a member of the Friends of the Fish group, is yet to sign the protocol.
If the final and full FS agreement is not concluded within 4 years, the negotiations will be terminated as per article 12 of the current FS agreement.
The June agreement includes a prohibition on subsidies to a vessel or operator found to have been engaged in illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, if “heavy” transparency provisions by the coastal Member are complied with, with a right to the subsidizing Member to limit the duration of such limited prohibition.
Secondly, it includes an absolute prohibition of subsidies for fishing in high seas not under the
competence of regional fisheries management organizations or arrangements (RFMO/As). However, in practice, every area is under the competence of RFMO/As. This is a landmark
prohibition that assumes that the competence of RFMO/As over areas of the high seas equates to sustainability.
Thirdly, the provision on overfished stocks will allow the continuation of subsidies regarding the most vulnerable stocks in the first phase of the agreement.
It has been well established by various studies and reports that the big subsidizers such as the European Union, the United States, Canada, Norway, Japan, and Korea among others, through their subsidies, have mainly contributed to the global depletion of fish stocks.
Yet, the burden of commitments appears to be gradually shifting to the developing countries, who had little or no contribution to the global depletion of fish stocks, said several MC12 participants who asked not to be identified.
The question, according to several people who spoke to WTD, is why would countries want to ratify an “incomplete” agreement merely focused on IUU fishing and overfished stocks, when they do not know what they are going to commit to in the overcapacity and overfishing pillar in the future.
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