Copyright 2005 The Financial Times Limited
Financial Times (London, England)

May 4, 2005 Wednesday
USA Edition 2

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY; Pg. 3

LENGTH: 548 words

HEADLINE: WTO rivals put their cases

BYLINE: By RAPHAEL MINDER

DATELINE: PARIS

BODY:


The 148 members of the World Trade Organisation are expected this month to select a new director general for the Geneva trade body. In separate interviews with the FT, the two remaining candidates, Pascal Lamy and Carlos Perez del Castillo, answered some key questions.

If the next WTO ministerial meeting in Hong Kong in December is a failure, will this bring an end to the idea of advancing trade liberalisation through multilateral rounds like Doha?

Pascal Lamy: Hong Kong should move us two-thirds or three-quarters of the way. Now if Hong Kong is a failure, it will no doubt postpone the end of the round. But before deciding whether that would be a disaster, let us also remember that the previous round lasted eight years and it had a smaller number of countries involved. In the end, is it better to have a round than a sectoral approach?

My own sense is that you can only have successful negotiations if you can present negotiations as a win-win for all the partners. In that respect, dealing with negotiations sectorally is much more difficult.

Carlos Perez del Castillo: I think it would be a disaster for multilateralism if we failed in that (Doha) round and this is why I feel that at the end of the day wisdom will prevail. The agreement is a must if we want to preserve the credibility of multilateralism.

The alternative to multilateralism is a very complicated and dangerous scenario in which I can see not only a proliferation of regional and bilateral agreements of all sorts.

What could you bring as director-general to reinvigorate the Doha round?

Pascal Lamy: The answer to that is really with the member states because the WTO is a member-driven organisation. But I think a new DG can bring the prospect to member states that his personal credit can be used by the organisation in circumstances where they need a facilitator, broker and diagnostics provider who can help them go further. It is basically a question of personal credit, experience and capacity to mobilise the right actors at the right time.

Carlos Perez del Castillo: I think that what the WTO needs now above all is someone who knows the WTO from inside, and I think that I really do. In the last four years, I have served the interests of all members by chairing the top bodies of the WTO. I think that I have a pretty good understanding of how the organisation works, and what the agreements are all about and what the procedures are all about.

Can the WTO dispute settlement mechanism cope with a dispute like Boeing-Airbus? Pascal Lamy: The dispute settlement mechanism is at the disposal of member states and they are free to decide to use it.

My sense is that, in the medium and long term, there is a risk of a discrepancy between the legislative and judiciary activities of the WTO.

Carlos Perez del Castillo: I hope that the dispute can be solved outside the framework of the WTO, and I think there are good reasons why both parties have been weighing whether to do so.

The moment it goes into the WTO, it is not going to be just a dispute between the two and it may also spill over into the negotiations.

On the other hand, the WTO system has been built to cope with this kind of dispute. So will it have a disastrous effect on the negotiations? I don't think so Full transcript www.ft.com/ wtointerview

LOAD-DATE: May 3, 2005