31.03.2015 CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL NEGINT Brasília, 31 de março de 2015 Índice I. OMC ______________________________ 2 SA pulled out of WTO treaty over bill, security industry says ______________ 2 Corrosion of WTO’S mandate Live Mint (Índia) ________________________ 3 WTO Sets up Disputes Panel over Russian EU Trade Tariffs _______________ 6 II. NEGOCIAÇÕES REGIONAIS E BILATERAIS 7 EGA Product List Nearly Ready; Parties Set Format For Scope Negotiations __ 7 III. OUTROS _________________________ 11 Brazil's Pots And Pans Clamor For Progress __________________________ 11 Brazil Has No Room for Errors, Finance Minister Says __________________ 12 Brazil's Rousseff, Levy rush to ease fears about austerity plan ___________ 13 1 31.03.2015 I. OMC SA pulled out of WTO treaty over bill, security industry says BD Live (África do Sul) THE realisation that the contentious Private Security Industry Regulation Amendment Bill would not pass scrutiny by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is what prompted the government to pull out of the body’s General Agreement on Trade in Services (Gats). This is the claim of international trade analysts and leaders in the private security industry who spoke at a media briefing on Monday. Section 20 of the draft law stipulates that all private security companies relinquish 51% of their South African units to local ownership. This comes after Police Minister Nathi Nhleko said last week that SA would withdraw from its commitments under Gats to consult WTO member states over the private security bill. Mr Nhleko also explained that a committee would be assembled to adjudicate applications for partial exemption made by foreign-owned private security companies. The committee would include representatives of the Civilian Secretariat for Police, the Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority, as well as the Departments of Trade and Industry, Home Affairs and International Relations. The Security Industry Alliance (SIA) is opposing the bill, saying foreign-owned security companies, including G4S, Securitas and ADT, would be subjected to compulsory expropriation without compensation if the bill is passed into law. Webber Wentzel director Peter Leon said on Monday that the bill created a system of compulsory indigenisation of private security companies with no compensation. He said "it has vague conditions for exemptions for companies" but it "didn’t say companies will be exempted on a retrospective basis". 2 31.03.2015 "You can’t pick and choose when it comes to the WTO. It’s a set of agreements that SA signed up to. Gats does provide for certain general exceptions, but they have to apply to article 14 and must not lead to arbitrary inhibition of trade," Mr Leon said. The bill has been waiting for President Jacob Zuma’s signature for more than a year. The SIA has threatened legal action if the bill is signed into law, while WTO member states where affected companies are based could seek compensation from SA. SIA official Costa Diavastos said the provisions for exemptions in the act were "nebulous, unclear and impractical". "The multi-ministerial committee will be positioned on whether each organisation will be exempt or not. It is unclear how they will apply their thinking," he said. Trade analyst Peter Draper said other African countries were beginning to emulate SA’s "restrictive" practices and the country would be locked out of investment destinations due to such policies. "Our partners in the region are watching SA closely and emulating what we do. Markets in Namibia, Zambia and others are becoming closed to SA because they see the policies we are putting in place," Mr Draper said. However, police ministry spokesman Musa Zondi said SA was within its rights to "modify" its Gats and WTO commitments. "SA can modify its international commitments. The modifying member shall enter into negotiations with a view to reaching agreement on any necessary compensatory adjustment," he said. Corrosion of WTO’S mandate Live Mint (Índia) “This is a very auspicious moment,” says Roberto Carvalho de Azevêdo, as the World Trade Organization (WTO) celebrates its 20th anniversary. After being Brazil’s trade 3 31.03.2015 envoy to WTO, Azevêdo took over the reins at the trade body 19 months ago. The successful conclusion of WTO’s ninth ministerial conference at Bali, Indonesia, in December 2013, three months after he assumed office as director general, got his innings off to a positive start. “After an 18-year drought, Bali proved that the WTO can deliver negotiated outcomes,” Azevêdo had said proudly, after the conclusion of the meeting on the shores of the Indian Ocean. A binding agreement on trade facilitation to harmonize customs procedures across the world along with eight “best endeavor outcomes” (promising to do the best) in agriculture and development for the developing and least-developed countries raised a glimmer of hope that the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) negotiations can be turned around. DDA negotiations were launched in 2001 to enable the developing and poorest countries to integrate into the global trading system. “2015 is going to be the year of great significance to the multilateral trading system,” Azevêdo declared, at an unusual briefing convened by the Association of Correspondents of the United Nations in Geneva last week. Members, he said, are busy implementing all the results of the Bali package as well as working on the post-Bali work programme to conclude the DDA negotiations at the tenth ministerial conference in Nairobi, Kenya, later this year. He described the current phase of work among members as a “solution-finding mode” for addressing the difficult issues in agriculture and industrial goods. “As far as substance is concerned,” he acknowledged, “we have challenges in the domestic support and market access pillars (of the Doha Agriculture dossier).” WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body is functioning well and poised to hit the 500- mark for adjudicating trade disputes. Twenty-three new members, including countries torn by the war on terror such as Iraq and Afghanistan, are currently negotiating to join the trade body. All in all, WTO has done well as a global custodian of the multilateral trading system over the last score of years. But a dispassionate assessment would, however, suggest a few “corrosive” developments, as well as positive ones. The biggest positive development was China joining WTO in December 2001. “The high watermark of multilateralism is marked by the accession of China to the WTO after the success of the Uruguay Round (which led to the establishment of WTO in 1995),” said a Western trade analyst. But since then, “there is a slow retreat from multilateralism—it is not a disaster yet but a source of considerable anxiety”. WTO has essentially “plateaued” after China’s accession and if anything, its overall performance is a “C-minus”, according to the 4 31.03.2015 analyst, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The dispute settlement system, which is touted as a jewel in WTO’s crown, has functioned well despite some major resourcing problems. From brooms to aircraft, bananas to cotton subsidies, the controversial US zeroing methodology in anti-dumping trade spats (a calculation device used by the US to establish anti-dumping duty) to Havana rum trademark cases, and the removal of quantitative restrictions to shrimp-turtle trade frictions, almost every issue has been adjudicated. Of course, the US has the distinction of not complying with major rulings for over 10 years. Azevêdo maintained that the dispute settlement system has worked well in 90% of the cases. But it is the non-implementation of the 10% of cases that could prove corrosive in the coming years, as it had happened with the wheat flour and pasta cases after the Tokyo Round subsidies code of 1973-79. Clearly, “one swallow doesn’t make a summer”, said another legal analyst, suggesting that non-implementation implies that a trading elephant can simply buy its way out instead of implementing the rules. Besides, “what is emerging, however, is a palimpsest of legal regimes: private arbitration, investment treaties, bilateral, regional, and multilateral agreements”, said former WTO appellate judge David Unterhalter. “In this ever-shifting space, the project of multilateralism is not assured… If the WTO was to become but a historical commitment to a foundational set of rights and obligations, then the institution will wither, and with it, the system of dispute settlement,” Unterhalter suggested in his farewell speech last year. When it comes to the Doha negotiations, it is one of the great ironies that those who launched the round—the US, the European Union (EU) and other industrialized countries such as Norway and Japan—are not prepared to live with the mandate they had agreed to, on the grounds that the realities have changed. Now, after 14 years of spasmodic negotiations, all the previously agreed decisions—the 2001 Doha agreement, the 2004 July framework agreement and the 2005 Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration—as well as the December 2008 draft modalities are set aside to enable one or two members to have their way. Significantly, “the December 2008 draft modalities (in agriculture) are the basis for negotiations and represent the end-game in terms of the landing zones of ambition”, Azevêdo wrote three years ago, in his previous avatar as Brazil’s trade envoy. But, in a burst of energy to conclude the Doha Round at the tenth ministerial conference, attempts are now being made to find out what one major industrialized country can live with in the disciplines for agricultural domestic subsidies. It is always credible to arrive at 5 31.03.2015 compromises by involving all key entities in the room—as the author of the last revised draft agriculture modalities, ambassador Crawford Falconer of New Zealand, did in 2008.