BALI, Indonesia — An exhausted Indonesian trade minister Gita Wirjawan went before a throng of journalists Dec. 7 to proclaim nothing less than the rebirth of the World Trade Organization.
He had worked day and night for more than four days as chair of the WTO ministerial conference to try to forge a deal after 12 years of failure.
The 159 national delegations struck a deal in the breaking dawn hours that day following an overnight negotiating session, in which they agreed to accept a limited deal aimed at improving trade rules with significant potential benefit for agriculture.
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But first, he wanted to talk about the impact of the “historic agreement” on the WTO itself, under fire for years for failing to deliver progress in trade negotiations.
“We have proven the WTO and the multilateral system can deliver,” said Wirjawan. “It moves the WTO back to centre stage.”
WTO director general Robert Azevedo followed up by noting that this was the first trade agreement made since the organization was formed in 1995. The only other success was agreement in 2001 to launch a new round of negotiations that until Dec. 7 had gone nowhere.
“In recent weeks, the WTO has come alive,” he told reporters at the closing news conference.
“In recent weeks, we really have lived up to our name.”
Before the deal was announced, there had been widespread speculation in the cavernous convention centre in this Indonesian tourist city that the Geneva-based trade regulator and negotiation forum was losing its relevance because of its inability to deliver agreements.
Now, even though regional and bilateral trade deals still loom as competition for the multilateral trade regime (many ministers left Bali before the deal was reached to fly to Singapore for negotiations on a Pacific regional deal under the Trans-Pacific Partnership), the two senior WTO officials insisted their organization was back in the game because of success in Bali.
Farm leaders who support the multilateral trade rules system agreed.
Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Ron Bonnett said it was an important breakthrough
“I am pleased to see that political will was shown to arrive at an agreement,” he said in an email as he prepared to leave Bali.
“This movement was needed to bring some credibility to the WTO negotiating framework.”
The Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance said the deal restores faith in the system’s ability to work.
“The Bali ministerial has proven that with the necessary resolve, countries can work through seemingly impossible issues and find a path forward.”
World Farmers’ Organization executive director Marco Marzano said the agreement was “a clear sign of another step forward in ensuring a more balanced and transparent trade system for farmers.”
