In November 2001, Trade Ministers meeting at the 4th Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar, agreed to launch a new round of WTO trade negotiations. In addition to ongoing negotiations on agriculture and services, Ministers agreed to begin negotiations on a number of issues, including non-agricultural market access (market access for industrial goods). The Doha Declaration was termed the “Doha Development Agenda”, to illustrate its focus on improving international trade rules for the specific purpose of contributing to the development of the world’s poorest countries.
In the context of non-agricultural market access (NAMA) negotiations, the Doha Declaration instructs WTO Members “…to reduce or as appropriate eliminate tariffs, including the reduction or elimination of tariff peaks, high tariffs, and tariff escalation, as well as non-tariff barriers, in particular on products of export interest to developing countries…”. Much of the discussion in the negotiations to date has centered around cutting tariffs, that is to say, determining how WTO Members will agree to lower the taxes they charge on foreign products entering at their borders. In that context the discussion has focused on variations of different formulae that, if agreed, would then be applied by all Members to systematically reduce their current tariff levels. The type and construction of the formula has been a point of controversy, and WTO Members have been divided on the issue largely, but not exclusively, along developed-developing country lines. In addition, small groups of countries have begun additional “informal” negotiations on the complete elimination of tariffs in specific sectors, including environmentally-sensitive sectors such as forestry products and fisheries. Little, if any, attention is being paid to environmental considerations in this aspect of the negotiations, despite literature and impact studies suggesting that negative environmental impacts may be a likely outcome for many countries if trade in forest and fishery products are further liberalized.
The intention of this note is to provide an environmental perspective on the state-of-play of the sectoral agreement and non-tariff barrier discussions in the NAMA negotiations. While recognizing the sensitivity of this topic to development related concerns, the objective of this note is to re-situate environmental considerations within the NAMA negotiations as a vital element of ensuring sustainable development.