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The special safeguard fiasco in the WTO: the perils of inadequate analysis and negotiation

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  • WOLFE, ROBERT

Abstract

The July 2008 attempt by a group of ministers to agree on modalities for the WTO's Doha Round broke down in part because they could not agree on a proposed ‘Special Safeguard Mechanism’ (SSM) for developing countries in agriculture. This paper offers a corrective to the conventional story that the breakdown was due to a simple conflict of interests over the SSM between the United States and India. The term SSM was first used in a Doha Round text in 2004, but neither the principles nor the commercial implications had ever been discussed by ministers before July 2008. The conceptual origins of the SSM go back to proposals in the late 1990s for a ‘Development Box’, but by the time of the ministerial, negotiators had been unable to agree on the purpose of the safeguard, or how it would work, including the agricultural products it would cover, how it would be triggered, the remedies (additional tariffs) allowed, or the transparency requirements for its operation. The SSM was therefore one of the least ‘stabilized’ parts of the text placed before ministers in July 2008. Members were far from reaching a consensual understanding of the SSM, which resulted in a fiasco that might have been avoided. Ministers should not have been asked to engage in a poorly prepared discussion of a sensitive issue, because inevitably they staked out incompatible positions. Members may subsequently find it difficult to back down.

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  • Wolfe, Robert, 2009. "The special safeguard fiasco in the WTO: the perils of inadequate analysis and negotiation," World Trade Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 8(4), pages 517-544, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:wotrrv:v:8:y:2009:i:04:p:517-544_99
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    Cited by:

    1. Lee Yong-Shik, 2016. "The Long and Winding Road – Path Towards Facilitation of Development in the WTO: Reflections on the Doha Round and Beyond," The Law and Development Review, De Gruyter, vol. 9(2), pages 437-465, December.
    2. Thennakoon, Jayanthi & Anderson, Kym, 2015. "Could the proposed WTO Special Safeguard Mechanism protect farmers from low international prices?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 106-113.
    3. Donald MacLaren, 2016. "The Contingent Tariff of the Special Safeguard Mechanism: What Happens When Markets are Imperfectly Competitive?," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 67(1), pages 62-83, February.
    4. Rorden Wilkinson & Erin Hannah & James Scott, 2016. "The WTO in Nairobi: The Demise of the Doha Development Agenda and the Future of the Multilateral Trading System," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 7(2), pages 247-255, May.
    5. Kym Anderson, 2016. "Agricultural Trade, Policy Reforms, and Global Food Security," Palgrave Studies in Agricultural Economics and Food Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-137-46925-0, August.
    6. Patrick Messerlin, 2010. "The Doha Round," Working Papers hal-00972939, HAL.
    7. Mark Langan & James Scott, 2011. "The false promise of Aid for Trade," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series 16011, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    8. Ellen Johnson & Anne Marie Thow & Nicholas Nisbett, 2023. "Opportunities to strengthen trade policy for food and nutrition security: an analysis of two agricultural trade policy decisions," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 15(4), pages 1109-1125, August.
    9. Jayanthi Thennakoon, 2015. "Political Economy of Altering Trade Restrictions in Response to Commodity Price Spikes," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(2), pages 434-447, May.
    10. Donald MacLaren, 2014. "The Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM) and Tariffs: Price Behaviour with Imperfectly Competitive Market Intermediaries," CESifo Working Paper Series 4585, CESifo.
    11. Patrick Messerlin, 2010. "The Doha Round," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-00972939, HAL.
    12. Robert Wolfe, 2013. "First diagnose, then treat: what ails the Doha Round?," RSCAS Working Papers 2013/85, European University Institute.

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