 at the WTO Ministerial Conference held at Abu Dhabi. The Ministerial){kind=link}
India recently blocked China led investment facilitation agreement (IFDA) at the WTO Ministerial Conference held at Abu Dhabi. The Ministerial Conference, WTO’s highest decision making body, came to an end late at night on March 1. The discussions were due to end on 29 February but because of the deadlock between members, they got extended.
India’s Stand on IFDA-
At the 13th MC meeting in Abu Dhabi, UAE, a coalition of more than 120 countries, led by China, attempted to push the IFDA agreement and join the WTO. However, India and South Africa opposed this pact, for it was not only a joint statement initiative, but it also lacked ministerial mandate.
According to experts, India opposed this agreement for it goes against multilateralism. In a multilateral pact, members make decisions based on consensus, which serves as the foundation of the WTO. Plurilateral pacts on the other hand, are when a group of countries sign an agreement among themselves.
According to Ashwani Mahajan of the Swadeshi Jagran Manch, every international agreement limits the scope of domestic regulations. However, IFDA, in the name of investment facilitation would have compromised the sovereign rights of the member countries. It basically aimed at creating legally binding provisions for facilitating investment flows.
Another important point to note is that, over the years, numerous issues and agendas have been surreptitiously introduced into the WTO. These initiatives typically begin as joint statements proposed by certain WTO members as trade-related issues. They are then approved without the majority consent of all WTO members. It is worth mentioning that the initiative led by the EU to regulate domestic services received support from 72 nations.
India has not yet joined any JSI. The main reason is that India believes that any discussion on any topic must start with the consensus of every WTO member. India believes that JSI are basically like pursuing the concerns of certain members, this weakens WTO’s primary goal.
According to Ajay Srivastava, Founder of GTRI, the IFDA would have imposed binding commitments that would “limit policy space for development and industrialisation.” Experts are of the opinion that India’s stand would help preserve WTO as an intuition for multilateral agreements not plurilateral agreements.
India’s Stand on MSP-
Despite all pressure from developed countries to reduce our agricultural support, India took a firm stand at the MC13 of WTO.
The developed countries basically wanted India to reduce its domestic agricultural support for this would give them an easy market access for their farm produce.
However, India has taken a strong stand on this matter despite all international pressure and criticism. The whole thing started a decade ago when India had agreed to allow the “Peace Clause.” The then Manmohan Singh led government agreed to this clause at MC9 held in Bali in 2013. This clause basically subjected India’s commitments towards food security at the scrutiny of developed countries. The clause limits subsidies at 10% of the aggregate produce. Under this clause India has to provide annual information for its public stockholding programme, essential for maintaining food security.
In 2013, they agreed that the MSP can remain in force until MC11 in 2017. India had basically agreed to lose the legal protection of “Peace Clause” available to it to run its MSP programme. Thankfully in 2014, Modi government intervened in time.
The then commerce minister Nirmala Sitharaman made efforts otherwise we would have lost the shield of “Peace Clause” which was to expire in 2017. She informed the Parliament that our concerns regarding the implementation of other Bali Ministerial Decisions, especially on public stockholding for food security purposes, must be addressed before proceeding further. India decided not to join a consensus within the WTO as regards implementation of the Facilitation Agreement.
As a result of her strong position, the WTO’s General Council adopted an extension of the Peace Clause. They extended it ‘in perpetuity’ until an agreement on a permanent solution is reached. Currently even though MC13 failed to resolve this issue. The Indian farmers remain protected thanks to the firm stand of Nirmala Sitharaman and the Modi government.