Talk:Doha Development Round

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"trade fairer" looked bad. I changed it to "a more fair system of trade" Any objections128.138.169.90 18:10, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Resources for future edits

Article needs a current event tag and stuff from this http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage_c_online.php?leftnm=11&bKeyFlag=IN&autono=20445 page. Decided not to write it myself, as I really have a major bias on all of this. TaylorSAllen 03:33, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] doha section/china

i don't think this sentence in the doha subsection - "In December 2001, the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (referred to by China as Taiwan - Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu) were admitted to the WTO." is relevant. many countries are admitted into the wto and this has little if nothing to do with the doha round. todddc

In response to this comment, I think it is important to realise how crucial China's introduction to the WTO is for developing countries. China is a massive power in terms of the world economy, and as such carries more weight in negotiations than a lot of smaller developing countries. At the same time, it shares many of the concerns of other, smaller developing countries such as EU agricultural subsidies and textile import quotas. Thus, China entering the WTO does have important implications in terms of how the Doha round is negotiated, and should therefore feature in this article. 84.70.42.145 22:37, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] agriculture disagreements

The article currently says:

Agricultural protectionism, especially with regards to US and to a lesser extent Europe's Common Agricultural Policy, is the most significant issue upon which agreement has been hardest to negotiate.

This sentence indicates that the US is the primary stumbling block on this issue, but I was under the impression that the US had actually offered to scrap all subsidies if Europe would agree to do likewise, but Europe refused. In any case, as the parties are now all blaming each other, it's probably better for us to simply say who's blaming who, and not try to come up with our own view until some reliable third-party analyses are available. --Delirium 11:58, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes --anskas 13:00, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

This article seems a bit one-sided in the favour of the WTO, several NGOs have been critical of the talks, and have suggested that they were of little benefit to developing countries.

See War on Want: http://www.waronwant.org/?lid=12741

And the World Development Movement: http://www.wdm.org.uk/news/presrel/current/tradetalkscollapse24072006.htm

Commenting on the reported collapse, Peter Hardstaff, Head of Policy at the World Development Movement said; “Ever since the start of this so-called development round, the EU and USA have consistently opposed, sidelined and ignored a string of development friendly proposals made by poor countries. After the WTO’s Hong Kong Ministerial Conference it was clear that there would not be a development outcome. In that context, the collapse of the talks is positive.”

more info is available on both websites.

I do agree that these articles lack criticism against WTO - it's quite a factual and minimal timeline of events with little reference to parties subjective opinions - and should probably kept that way. Instead I suggest a subsection (Criticism against Doha rounds) with links to wiki pages of various NGOs. And on a periferal note, I may not always agree to the outcomes of the talks, but I can't really see the rationale of how stopping talkING would help the developing countries. Trust fund kids would do a lot more good if they stayed at home writing emails to their congressmen/daddies instead of obstructing the only democratic instrument there is towards fair trade

I work for War on Want and while I agree that the page should be kept factual (there are far too many detailed and subjective arguments to go into there), I don't agree with the snide comments about trust fund kids. As far as we are concerned the WTO is not a democratic instrument (amongst many other examples, ref the 'green rooms' where invited players make the real deals and everyone else including journalists or poor country governments are kept out). In its current set up, it is unable to create 'fair trade' as it is dominated by inflexible 'free trade' ideologies. Further, the point is that the political pressure created by the collapse of the round is more effective in progressing towards a pro-poor outcome than any democratic lobbying to your government who listen to professional lobbyists far more. If you are from the USA, you must surely acknowledge that! On a peripheral note, I don't see how welcoming the collapse of the round is 'obstructing' it - surely it collapses under the weight of its own contradictions and the protests of developing countries?

[edit] Special mandate

This term is used without explanation or reference. Jim 15:55, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

It refers to fast-track trade-negotiation authority given to the President by Congress. Our article on that is kind of a mess at the moment, though. --Delirium 16:30, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Introduction bias

The introduction of this article is unprofessional and cleary biased against the US. I'm going to be making some edits, but this article definitely needs more help. Cold Water 20:21, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I would also add India's positions, in particular:

Kamal Nath, India's trade negotiator, gave the following reasons for the collapse of the talks:

  • "Developing countries cannot allow their subsistence farmers to lose their livelihood security and food security to provide market access to agricultural products from developed countries," referring to demands by rich countries to limit the use of tools by developing countries that would safeguard against floods of subsidized commodities.
  • "In NAMA [non-agricultural market access negotiations] developing countries are being asked to reduce their duties to levels which would threaten their infant industries. We cannot agree to reduction of duties on industrial goods without adequate safeguards." [1]

todddc

Looking much better. todddc

I think we can remove the POV check tag now. Any objections? Cold Water 19:30, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

POV check tag removed. Cold Water 21:04, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Inappropriate Image?

Why is there a picture of the KKK burning a flag with the legend "a typical Wikimania"? It seems completely inappropriate and offensive.

[edit] Geneva 2006

The last sentence of this section 'Nevertheless great strides were made in the logical advocation of free trade, something a few decades, in not years back would have been silenced by protectionist neoconservative lobbyists.' seems to me to violate NPoV badly. That 'great strides were made' and that advocation of free trade was 'logical' are unreferenced opinions, and the remainder of the sentence should either be removed or made to refer to specific past incidents. The rest of the section isn't a bad start, should we just remove this sentence? --Tynam 12:15, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I removed it earlier. Cold Water 19:30, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Never written a word on wikipedia yet, so sorry if I am getting this wrong... Interesting article about Doha, thanks a lot! But one little thing, if you look at the Doha Development Agenda it says the negotiations were supposed to be finished by the 1st Jan 2005...

http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/minist_e/min01_e/mindecl_e.htm#agriculture

Even more incredible that still no end is in sight...

Thanks (felix)