How NGOs Engage in Multilateral Trade Talks

1

• How NGOs Engage in Multilateral Trade Talks
• Kamala Dawar (kdawar_at_consint.org)

2
Outline of presentation

• Consumers International (CI) as an NGO
• How CI develops policy
• The specific process and conclusions for
  competition on the Cancun agenda

3
1. What is Consumers International?

• Consumers International (CI) is an independent,
  non-profit organisation
• CI links and supports 250 consumer groups and
  agencies in 115 countries
• CI has official representation at United Nations
  agencies
• Lobbies global and regional organisations - WTO,
  OECD, ISO and Codex
• CI policy promotes legislation, institutions and
  information to promote rights and
  responsibilities of consumers
• CI is now the voice of the international consumer
  movement on
• product and food standards
• health and patients rights
• the environment and sustainable consumption
• the regulation of international trade and public
  utilities
• CI is not aligned with or supported by any
  political party or industry
• CI is funded by fees from member organisations
  and by grants from foundations, governments and
  multilateral agencies
• CI has offices in Malaysia, Chile, Zimbabwe,
  Senegal and London

4
2. Who runs Consumers International?

• CI is run by its membership
• Full members are independent consumer
  organisations with a substantial record of
  programmes and services for consumers
• They must be independent of party politics and
  corporations
• Around 30 of CIs members are Full members
• Affiliate members must meet the same criteria of
  independence
• Mostly young organisations, or restricted work
  remit
• Around 50 of CIs members are Affiliate members
• Government Affiliate members are departments,
  regulatory authorities or anti-trust agencies
  responsible for consumer policy and the consumer
  interest
• They must support and complement work of consumer
  organisations
• Around 20 of CIs members are Government
  Affiliate members

5
CI General Assembly

• CI General Assembly is the main policy-making
  body
• General Assembly meets every three years
• General Assembly gives general policy direction
  and principal areas of activity
• All full members have voting rights at the
  General Assembly
• Proposes new policy resolutions
• Amends existing ones
• Policy passed by a majority vote of full members
• Most of the policies are brought together in a
  Congress Statement
• This constitutes the organisations general
  policy manual
• Latest Statement replaces all the previous ones

6
3. General rules for agreeing policy

• Between CI Congresses, development of new CI
  policy initiated by any of the CI offices, or by
  a Full Member
• Policies are agreed to by consensus or near
  consensus by its full members
• The consultation process conducted by using
  electronic list-serves
• All CI members have access to list-serves
• List-serves used to circulate draft position
  papers
• List-serves engage all of its non-governmental
  members - full and affiliate
• Debate of policy issues continues up until point
  of decision-making
• If policy cannot be determined by consensus or
  near consensus, a vote it taken by full members
• Detailed procedures state how to progress if
  serious disagreement
• CI also publishes background briefing papers,
  research studies and discussion documents
• Greatest obstacle in consultation process is
  translating document into the numerous languages
  used by CI members

7
4. CI and Competition Policy post-Doha

• CI active on competition policy for over a decade
  
• Competition policy is of benefit to consumers in
  promoting competitive or fair markets, rather
  than promoting the interests of individual
  competitors
• 1993 CI urged for the inclusion of competition
  policy at the WTO
• CI welcomed the Competition Working Group at the
  1996 WTO Ministerial Conference
• At Doha, CI stressed need for further
  deliberation before moving to negotiations
• Thus CI sought to develop the expertise and
  capacity of members in decision-making processes
• 2001 CI published Global Report on Competition 7
  developing and transitional economies
• conducted by national researchers - academics and
  consumer policy experts
• Funded by Dutch Government, IDRC, Oxfam

8
CIs Regional Work

• CIs regional offices also work independently on
  competition issues
• Asia-Pacific office worked on competition in the
  ASEAN region, co-hosted conference with UNCTAD
• Africa offices produced discussion paper on
  competition for African consumers
• Latin America office enlarged the scope of its
  work on competition and impact of FTAA on
  consumers
• London office focused on competition agreements
  and policy pressures relating to EU accession
• London office attends OECDs Global Forum for
  Competition
• CIs members also undertake work independently
• e.g. CAP, CUTS
• Consumers organisations continue to work on these
  issues at a national level

9
5. CIs Interaction with Scholars, Practitioners
and Policy Makers

• At a national and regional level, CI embraces a
  wealth of experts whose overlap with government
  and academia widely recognised
• CI director in Asia Pacific is ex-Dean of the
  law faculty of the University of Malaysia
• Allan Asher headed Australian Competition and
  Consumer Commission also CI and CA (UK)
• Issue of the negotiation and application of an
  MCA posed difficulties for our membership
• differences of opinion of what the concepts meant
• different views on how these would relate to
  national law
• CI commissioned 6 discussion papers on the issue
  of the need for an MCA
• expert contributors were chosen by CIs regional
  offices and the Head Office in consultation with
  CI Members
• authors included practitioners, consumer and
  competition experts, development experts and
  economists
• paper disseminated and discussed at the CI
  Directors Meeting in October 2002

10
MCA Discussion Paper

• Discussion paper indicated need to explore
  technical issues involved in framing a
  multilateral competition agreement at the WTO and
  the implications of existing GATT/WTO agreements
• CI commissioned a Technical Report from legal,
  economic and policy experts in competition
• Objectives not to produce policy but
• to identify consumer interest to
• ensure consumer movement had the capacity to
  understand issues and equipped to lobby
• Discussion promoted at seminars involving experts
  and officials (UNCTAD, OECD, EC and WTO)
• CI set up a competition discussion list-serve for
  consumer organisations, scholars, practitioners
  and policy makers

11
6. CI, multilateral trade negotiations and the
fate of competition policy at Cancun

• CI has positive approach to promoting competition
  at a multilateral level, including the
  possibility of supporting a specific
  consumer-orientated policy at the WTO
• BUT inclusion of competition within the Singapore
  issues added complexity of wider negotiating
  arena
• Following lengthy consultation processes with
  members
• CI recommended each of the Singapore new issues
  should be considered on individual merits
• CI further recommended EU proposal did not
  address consumers real concerns
• CI argued that there should be a delay in formal
  negotiation on a competition agreement
• CI thought WTO working group on Interaction
  between Trade and Competition Policy should
  continue to clarify competition issues
• Many of CIs members located in the developing
  world and felt their governments concerns about
  lack of clarity of the competition agenda were
  legitimate in relation to
• market access
• national discretion as a factor in general
  development policy
• Therefore the democratically agreed policy did
  not want CI to endorse immediate negotiations,
  especially within the context of a single
  undertaking

12
Concluding Remarks

• CI endeavoured to engage with policy makers,
  practitioners and scholars on the issue of
  promoting the consumer interest through
  competition agreements
• The CI competition resource suite incorporated
  all of these constituencies
• Publications were disseminated as widely as
  possible, as a part of our capacity building and
  campaigning mandate
• CI remains committed to working towards the
  effective promotion and regulation of competition
  with members and individual governments
• CI and its members are not short of expertise,
  from our staff or from our member organisations
  on work in food and product safety standards or
  trade
• BUT difference in the formal rules of engagement
  at the multilateral level
• Codex and ISO gives CI formal observer status
• Both Codex and ISO encourage effective consumer
  representation
• The WTO is different
• no formal recognition of NGOs
• ad hoc and dysfunctional negotiations
• vast inaccessible meetings
• Ultimately this determines the nature of NGO
  engagement in multilateral trade negotiations