GENEVA Reuters said on Tuesday that the World Trade Organization should be able to conclude negotiations on fishing subsidies and a response to the COVID 19 epidemic early in 2022, even after postponing its ministerial meeting this week.
The postponement had interrupted momentum for 48 hours and the Geneva-based trade body was now back to work, according to Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who was speaking on the day its ministerial conference MC 12 was due to start.
The WTO is considering rescheduling MC 12 to early March because of travel restrictions due to coronaviruses. The members are expected to discuss what they want to do next.
Two of the most advanced negotiations are involving reducing subsidies for fishing to save global fish stocks and increasing supply of vaccine to low and middle-income countries, as well as increasing the supply of vaccines to low and middle-income countries.
India and South Africa have proposed to waiver intellectual property rights for COVID 19 vaccines and treatments, but they face opposition from developed members such as the European Union, Britain and Switzerland. They say it would be better to use flexibilities in existing WTO rules, which allow countries to grant licences to local producers.
Okonjo-Iweala said that they hope that we will work now, come back after the holidays, and we hope that early next year we can wrap up at least a response to the pandemic and fisheries.
Ambassadors would have to be given more power to make decisions, and the WTO had to change its way of operating. It could be possible to use virtual meetings of ministers to bless texts when completed.
We don't know the trajectory of the pandemic, so we have to look at the way we work not really gearing everything to 'Let's wait for a ministerial' and then we'll suddenly start working hard and produce a result, Okonjo-Iweala said.