Financial Times (London, England)

May 7, 2005 Saturday
USA Edition 2

SECTION: LETTERS TO THE EDITOR; Pg. 6

LENGTH: 334 words

HEADLINE: Conventional wisdom no longer applies at WTO

BYLINE: By SUGJOON CHO

BODY:


From Dr Sungjoon Cho.

Sir, Fortunately, Pascal Lamy and Carlos Perez del Castillo, the two remaining candidates for the position of next World Trade Organisation director-general, are both of high calibre and integrity. Yet, who will be the next head of the WTO seems to be of less concern than what he will do to save the Doha round and, most critically, how soon he will act.

President George W. Bush's fast track authority - without which any significant multilateral talks would be nearly impossible because of the danger of post-deal congressional bottling-up - expires in 2007, and the global trading community seems to be faced with its last chance, namely the Hong Kong ministerial conference in December this year.

One option might be for the next WTO director-general to come up with pragmatic proposals before the Hong Kong ministerial. He can scrutinise current and past positions taken by members to supply a rich set of practical choices, for example various matrices of give-and-take across topics such as agriculture and services.

I believe both candidates are capable of mobilising the necessary political capital, considering their careers and areas of speciality. This approach might save the Doha round, just as the Dunkel text saved the Uruguay round a decade ago.

Recently, piecemeal and compartmentalised negotiations under the Doha round have begun to cause WTO members fatigue and frustration. Conventional wisdom does not apply here: we should put all the eggs in one basket. Facing its 10th anniversary, what the WTO needs most right now is a solid yet pragmatic framework by which to deliver a successful deal in Hong Kong so as to stave off atmospheric scepticism over multilateralism and to defragment world trade.

The current extraordinary situation requires extraordinary vision and leadership in the next head of the WTO. We suffered Seattle and Cancun. We cannot afford another debacle.

Sungjoon Cho, Assistant Professor of Law, Chicago-Kent College of Law, Chicago, IL 60661, US

LOAD-DATE: May 6, 2005