Geneva,

A group of 125 civil society organizations, in a letter sent Tuesday to
WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy, has called for
the cancellation of a mini-Ministerial reportedly involving only about 30
WTO Members which Lamy had planned for end April and early May in Geneva.

In their letter, the 125 civil society groups from some 40 countries
criticized what they called the WTO Secretariat’s instigation of
’invitation-only’ meetings, from which most WTO Members will be excluded, to
attempt to force agreement on aspects of a Doha Round deal that have been
opposed by a majority of the Members.

The groups called on Lamy, as the WTO Director-General and Chair of the
Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC), to cancel the ’’ad hoc exclusive’’
Ministerial-level gathering and ensure that all WTO Members are fully
involved in any negotiations regarding the Doha Round.

Among the signatories to the letter are ActionAid International; ATTAC;
Berne Declaration; Brazilian Network for the Integration of the Peoples;
Consumers Association of Penang, Malaysia; Corporate Europe Observatory;
Friends of the Earth (Australia, Germany, Malaysia and the US); Focus on the
Global South; Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy; Oxfam
International; Public Citizen; Public Services International; Southern and
Eastern African Trade Information and Negotiations Institute (SEATINI);
Third World Network; and War on Want.

The letter by the civil society groups to Lamy comes in the same week as
negotiations are being held at the WTO on both agriculture and non
agriculture market access (NAMA).

The Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration set 30 April as the deadline for
achieving modalities in both agriculture and NAMA.

At a ’Green Room’ meeting of several WTO Ambassadors some two weeks ago,
Lamy reportedly indicated that he intended to convene a meeting of some 30
Ministers in Geneva during the period of 29 April to 5 May, possibly to try
and reach agreement on some key modalities in agriculture and NAMA.

In their letter to Lamy, the civil society groups expressed deep concern
over his call for some Ministers to meet in Geneva end April and early May,
and opposed such a mini-Ministerial meeting that could lead to critical
decisions being made by only a handful of Ministers.

They pointed out that it was now too late for the majority of Ministers to
make their way to Geneva, especially when it remains unclear what the agenda
of the meeting will be, and therefore unclear if it will be worth the
Ministers’ scarce financial resources and time.

The groups also noted that Lamy’s proposal at a recent TNC meeting that "the
establishment of modalities as foreseen by the Hong Kong Declaration will
require some sort of Ministerial involvement during the last week of April,
with a safety net beginning of May" contradicts his previously stated
commitment to a bottom-up approach to the negotiations.

Any negotiations or decision-making process that happens at the end of April
or at any time should be all-inclusive, transparent, and with the full
participation of all members, as per the WTO mandate, the group’s letter
stressed.

It also said that the current situation adds to the mounting concerns shared
by civil society and many developing-country officials: that exclusive
meetings of certain countries to further negotiations in the WTO have become
the main negotiating arena for the Doha Round.

The letter cited these exclusive meetings as including the recent WTO Senior
Officials’ meeting in Geneva on 7-9 March, the mini-Ministerial meeting in
London on 10-11 March, and the recent micro-Ministerial in Rio on March
31-April 1, which Lamy attended.

The civil society groups said that the countries that are being excluded
from these ’’undemocratic and non-inclusive decision-making processes’’ are
the majority of the WTO’s member countries, including the LDCs, the ACP
Group, and the African Group.

These are the same countries which now face a Doha Round conclusion that, if
implemented, would harm the majority of their populations, as confirmed by
recent Carnegie, World Bank, and other studies, because of the manner in
which the negotiations process has been dominated by the interests of the
rich and powerful countries which have forced development issues off the
agenda.

The letter added that if Lamy’s call for Ministerial involvement is not to
be seen as a willful continuation of this undemocratic, top-down approach,
then it is imperative that every member has equal access to the
decision-making processes of the Doha Round.

In this regard, the groups demanded that the entire membership of the WTO be
invited to be involved in all processes and all meetings with regards to
future WTO negotiations. The presence of some Ministers must not become a
pretext for exclusive Green Room meetings where decisions are made without
the presence of all WTO members.

They also reminded Lamy that Articles 48 and 49 of the Doha Ministerial
Declaration make abundantly clear that the Director-General, above all,
should be committed to ensure that the negotiations are open to all members
of the WTO and that they should be conducted in such a manner that
facilitates the effective participation of all in order to achieve benefits
for all members and an overall balance in the outcome of the negotiations.

The groups said that this mandate however has been repeatedly violated over
the course of the negotiations.

They also voiced serious concerns that Lamy’s proposed process is likely to
be a re-creation of the procedurally flawed situation that produced the July
package in 2004, where only a select circle of Ministers were present at a
mini-Ministerial in Geneva, which became the main decision-making and
negotiating forum. Decisions were made without the full participation of the
entire membership that were as critical as those of a formal Ministerial
Conference.

The civil society groups concluded by seeking Lamy’s assurance that honest,
democratic and inclusive processes, not the interests of the powerful few or
looming time-lines, will determine the process of WTO negotiations.