With the meeting of World Trade Organization’s General Council scheduled to be held on May 6-7, WTO members have an opportunity to pick up the pieces after the failure of the 14th Ministerial Conference (MC-14) held in Yaounde recently. While on the issue of Investment Facilitation Agreement (IFA) a pathway for breaking the deadlock might be in sight, on some other issues the developments at MC-14 may have made the task of putting the WTO back on track more difficult. These developments are discussed below.
At MC-14 India continued its resolute opposition to the inclusion of IFA as an Annex 4 plurilateral agreement at the WTO. India also signalled the possibility of taking this issue forward by undertaking multilateral negotiations on guardrails for plurilateral agreements. At MC-14 some other countries also adopted a similar approach on this issue. This holds the promise of bringing clarity and certainty on IFA and systemic issues related to plurilateral agreements.
Let us turn to issues on which developments at MC-14 may have deepened the divide among the WTO membership. First, at MC-14 it became evident that the US was interested in an outcome on just one issue — moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions. Unlike the past ministerial meetings where the members agreed to a two-year extension of this moratorium, at Yaounde the US insisted on a longer period of the moratorium. Almost all countries, including India, showed little appetite to resist the US demand and quickly acquiesced to a four-year moratorium. At the end, on account of the stiff opposition of Brazil and Turkiye to this unreasonable demand of the US, no decision could be taken. If the US had confined its ambitions to what had been agreed to on this moratorium at some of the earlier ministerial conferences, a deadlock could have been avoided at Yaounde.
Second, at MC-14 the US strongly opposed the extension of the moratorium on another issue of particular interest to many developing countries: non-violation complaints related to disputes under the agreement on intellectual property rights (TRIPS Agreement). In past ministerial conferences, WTO members had agreed to two-year extension of this moratorium, which mirrored the period of extension of the moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions. This provided an assurance to WTO members, especially the developing countries, that they would not be sued for resorting to various flexibilities under the TRIPS Agreement. With the US aggressively seeking at least a four-year period of moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions but firmly opposing the moratorium on non-violation complaints under the TRIPS Agreement, the stage is set for another negotiating logjam.
Electronic commerce
Third, and perhaps the most controversial, issue is the declaration made by a group of 66 WTO members to implement the Agreement on Electronic Commerce (AEC) through interim arrangements, with the ultimate objective of subsequently adding it as an Annex 4 plurilateral agreement at the WTO. Controversially, the AEC stipulates that even when it is implemented through the interim arrangements and is not yet part of the WTO, it will be serviced by the WTO secretariat with the Director-General of the WTO (DG) administering certain aspects of the agreement. This is highly problematic for many reasons.
First, WTO rules do not provide for the DG and the secretariat to administer even limited aspects of agreements that are outside the WTO. What is envisaged under the interim arrangements of the AEC amounts to the DG unilaterally arrogating to herself role and responsibilities going beyond the WTO rules. Second, this development represents a surreptitious attempt by certain WTO members to curtail the role of the entire membership but expand the powers of the DG through the backdoor. Third, this would divert resources away from activities mandated by WTO rules and instead direct them towards initiatives with questionable legal status. Finally, this would take forward the attempts by some developed countries to delegitimise the WTO and push forward their agenda of WTO reform, which would further bend the organisation in line with their interests.
In conclusion, developments at the Yaounde Ministerial Conference have mired the WTO in a deeper deadlock than before. It remains to be seen whether developed countries limit their vaulting ambitions and seek to get this inter-governmental organisation back on track, or they manufacture another crisis for pushing their agenda of remoulding the WTO to further serve their interests at the cost of most developing countries. The forthcoming meeting of the WTO General Council is likely to provide pointers about the future of this organisation.
The writer is an international trade expert and author of the book ‘Strategies in GATT and WTO Negotiations’. Views are personal
Published on May 6, 2026