WTO and Cancun Round

There was this guy (I forgot his blog address) talking about the failure of the Cancun Round with the détente, so to speak, among the Third World and developing economies and the developed countries. He claimed in his webpage that we should not be over zealous about the failure of the Cancun Round since it was also meant to tackle measures on alleviating corruption in the WTO member countries. In which case, I can vividly remember the cover page of the last publication of The Economist.

I am not one to say anything against the position of that guy. I’m sure he had thought about it and I have to admire his candidness in posting such academic issues in his blog.

I do have something to say about the topic.

The accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) has practically been a standard in this day and age. As we have discussed in my university before, there appears to be no other venue to bring your trade problems and trade issues other than the WTO. Any country wanting his trade issues settled has seen the benefits of the WTO. After all, WTO has been an effective mechanism in institutionalizing standards and practices on promoting the free market economy. Note: It promotes free-market economy, but it does not necessarily ensure it. Thus the war particularly on trade in agricultural products seems inevitable – with the agricultural countries lobbying for lesser barriers on trade in agriculture and the developed countries’ domestic politics calling otherwise. Being part of the WTO is a given. Unless you’re powerful enough to either sustain your own economy or engage in bilateral agreements all on your own and come up the winner.

Now the Cancun Round was seen by a lot of developing economies as a milestone. They have proven that together, they can call a halt to what would otherwise have been an unfair Round with the developing countries’ agricultural trade suffering. At least this was what they might be thinking.

This brings about several other instances in history wherein developing countries could have called a default. Most particular among all the historical milestones is the debt crisis. Sadly, the developed countries were too engrossed with their domestic problems that they failed to see the benefit of a multilateral approach to the problem.

In any case, the Cancun Round was not entirely disastrous as far as the WTO goes, as some members of the academe might think. True enough, there is a need to caution everyone on the failure of the Round. The failure, as much as it emphasized an idea, may bring about negative effects. However, the point of the matter is, the failure did EMPHASIZED an issue – an issue that is far more important to developing economies such as where I reside. Had the Round pushed through, the voices calling for a level playing field on trade in agriculture may not have been heard. In this case, it was heard and it was very loud.

As for the caution on the solution that the Cancun Round was going to bring about with the inclusion of corruption on the agenda… well, one can only speculate at this point in time since the Round had not pushed through. However, if it did push through, what do we think would have been the result of Cancun? Do we honestly think that the talks and negotiation would have paved the way for a more liberalized and transparent governance? Do we think that a few days of negotiation would pave the way for less corruption?

This is not the time for talks. This is a time for action and early wins. The world does not wait for each and everyone to show off what good ideas they had put on paper. And corruption certainly cannot be resolved by negotiations culminating with the signing of an agreement. Corruption breeds… corruption is in the system as much as it is in the culture.

The best bet to lessen corruption would be transformation – cultural, economic, social and political – engaging in not talks thinking that signing an agreement will actually change a lifelong practice. I would prefer and hope that showing early wins that bring about development and increased profit to the individuals and to the economies would provide the needed push for people to start engaging in legal and dignified ways of living. After all, peace talks (which is what the round talking about corruption appears o me) have no effect on a lifelong practice of free-riding. But increased benefits of engaging in legal and productive activity certainly can make a person change his or her habits.

Besides, as the cliché goes, “Rome was not built a day.” I guess when you think about it, it was build a day at a time, focusing on a specific sections at a time. Focusing on too many things all at the same time has a tendency to scatter everything. And for those of us who want results, we’d rather have one concrete result and work on the next step towards another rather than have several half-baked ones.