MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

WTO resumes negotiations on fisheries subsidies; agreed text should be ready by December

The aim at this phase is to collectively improve the existing draft text so that the resulting draft is as clean and clear as possible.

World Trade Organization country members resumed this month fisheries subsidies negotiations following the August break and the chair of the rounds Ambassador Santiago Wills from Colombia said the objective was to produce a clean text on fisheries subsidy rules ahead of the 12th ministerial conference next December.

The first round of meetings involves consultations with members followed by text-based negotiations in various formats such as bilateral discussions, small groups, and meetings of the entire membership on key issues where views remain divergent. The aim at this phase is to collectively improve the existing draft text so that the resulting draft is as clean and clear as possible.

For the second stage, on 11-29 October, the chair is seeking daily meetings with all members to comb through the draft text clause-by-clause and produce a fully agreed clean text. This is in line with the call made by ministers in their 15 July virtual meeting to conclude the negotiations soon and before MC12.

Following the July meeting with ministers, Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Ambassador Wills said they received valuable inputs including on the next steps that would be required to successfully conclude the 20-year negotiations.

Under the mandate from the WTO's 11th Ministerial Conference held in Buenos Aires in 2017 and the UN Sustainable Development Goal Target 14.6, negotiators have been given the task of securing agreement on disciplines to eliminate subsidies for illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and to prohibit certain forms of fisheries subsidies that contribute to overcapacity and overfishing, with special and differential treatment being an integral part of the negotiation.