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Reforming the WTO Legal Order for Agricultural Trade: Issues for European Rural Policy in the Doha Round

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2008

Michael Cardwell  and
Christopher Rodgers
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Abstract

European farm policy has undergone radical change in recent years, culminating in the Agenda 2000 reforms to the Common Agricultural Policy agreed in 1999 and then their Mid-Term Review in 2003. In particular, subsidy payments have been substantially ‘decoupled’ from production and switched decisively towards providing income support for farmers under a new ‘single farm payment’ scheme. These reforms have been predicated upon the need to win acceptance for Community farm subsidies in the Doha Round of WTO negotiations. This article examines the new law of the Common Agricultural Policy against the background of the domestic support reduction commitments contained in the 1994 Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture. It questions the extent to which the single farm payment scheme fulfils the requirements for ‘green box’ exemption from such commitments. Options for the re-negotiation of the Agreement on Agriculture are discussed, including measures to improve the justiciability of its terms and to exclude discriminatory and trade-distorting domestic support. The article also considers the implications of the recent WTO Appellate Body Decisions in United States—Subsidies on Upland Cotton and European Communities-Export Subsidies on Sugar. It concludes that the Community will have difficulty gaining acceptance for its reforms among WTO Members. Whatever the legitimacy of its subsidy regime within the framework of the current Agreement on Agriculture, the emergence of a strong negotiating position among developing countries, posited on opposition to the volume of farm support maintained by the Community and United States, may present even greater obstacles to the conclusion of a new Agreement on Agriculture in the Doha Round.

Type
Articles
Information
International & Comparative Law Quarterly , Volume 55 , Issue 4 , October 2006 , pp. 805 - 838
Copyright
Copyright © British Institute of International and Comparative Law 2006

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References

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143 ibid para 267.

144 ibid para 265: ‘[t]he European Communities’ approach is, in our view, too formalistic.'

145 ibid para 281.

146 ibid para 280.

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156 See, eg, Commissioner Fischler, Speech/04/88 Restarting the Doha Round (Washington, DC 19 02 2004).Google Scholar

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159 WTO, WT/L/579, 2 08 2004, Annex A, paras 14 and 15.Google Scholar

160 MEMO/05/357, Statement of Conditional EU Negotiating Proposals—with Explanatory Annotations (Brussels 10 10 2005)Google Scholar; and the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration noted a proposal to reduce this to 2.5 per cent: WT/MIN(05)/DEC, 22 12 2005, Annex A, para 9.Google Scholar

161 WTO, WT/L/579, 2 08 2004, Annex A, paras 16 and 48.Google Scholar

162 For an earjy exampie of radical solutions, see WTO Agreement on Agriculture: Green Box/Annex 2 Subsidies. Proposal by Cuba, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Pakistan, Haiti, Nicaragua, Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka and El Salvador G/AG/NG/W14, 23 06 2000.Google Scholar

163 For 2005, the budget for the SFP was originally estimated at €28, 025.6 million: European Commission, Long-term Policy Perspective for Sustainable Agriculture COM(2003)23, Annex A-2 (although this would be reduced by delayed implementation ad partial decoupling). However, as indicated, in January 2005 it was claimed that 90 per cent of direct payments were decoupled: Commissioner Fischer Boel, Speech/05/773 WTO—Hong Kong Ministerial: Time to Get Serious (Brussels 8 12 2005).Google Scholar On ‘box shifting’ generally, see, eg, Diakosawas, D ‘The Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture in Practice: How Open are OECD Markets?’ in MD, Ingco and LA, Winters (eds) Agriculture and the New Trade Agenda: Creating a Global Trading Environment for Development (CUP Cambridge 2004) 37–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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