Has the BRICS meeting in Johannesburg eclipsed the upcoming G20 show in New Delhi? Yes, at least in articulating the concerns of the Global South in the multilateral trading system (MTS), particularly at the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
At a time when the MTS is being fractured into pieces and the WTO appears to be irreversibly atrophied, the Johannesburg II declaration issued at the end of the expanded BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa with six new members – Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates) summit showed the mirror to the Northern countries.
It has brought the central challenges facing the developing and least-developed countries in the MTS to the centerstage. It reiterates the long-pending concerns of the developing and the least-developed countries at the WTO. More importantly, it offers a comprehensive agenda for reforming the existing international financial institutions. As the global financial system based on the dollar gives way to international trading in other BRICS currencies, a paradigmatic shift is certainly underway.
Little wonder, the Western media, including the much-respected Financial Times, seems to be gripped with a palpable fear that the BRICS project could change the international economic order.
In sharp contrast, while the G20 leaders’ meeting is scheduled to commence on September 9, the G20 Trade and Investment Ministers’ Meeting (TIMM), which concluded under the Indian presidency in the erstwhile royal Rambagh Palace of Jaipur rajas on August 25, seems to have failed to live up to its promises.
While it is understandable that there is no communique at the end of the meeting because of the proposed language on the Russia’s Ukraine war, the Outcome Document and the chair’s summary of the G20 TIMM appear to have elevated the concerns of the dominant Northern countries such as the United States, the European Union, Japan and Canada among others in the global trading system and also their WTO priorities.
Worse still, the concerns of the Global South are articulated in anaemic language with limited or no implications, while the chair of the TIMM, India’s commerce minister Piyush Goyal, claimed success and “groundbreaking” consensus at the concluding press conference.
Tale of two narratives
A cursory glance at the two narratives – one issued in Johannesburg and the other at the Jaipur meeting – reveals why the Johannesburg II declaration represents a watershed moment for the Global South, as compared to a mere continuation of the previous anodyne outcomes in the G20 TIMM document.
India ought to have recognised the asymmetrical framework underlying the G20 before declaring itself as the voice of the Global South.
The G20 includes 19 industrialised and several developing countries: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union.
Since its establishment in the shadows of the 2008 financial crisis in Washington in 2008, successive G20 meetings merely reinforced the Northern trade and finance agenda at the behest of the dominant international institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the WTO, and the Paris-based OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development). Of course, routinely the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Climate Change Agreement were also reinforced.
The European Union seems ready to violate the Paris Climate Change agreement by unilaterally announcing punitive protectionist measures like the carbon border taxes. In fact, it appears each G20 meeting has become an event for record-keeping and further embracing narratives largely set by the US and other industrialised countries.
It is easy to make pronouncements about the need to address the concerns of the poor people and communities, as India did in the closed-door room meeting on August 24, but it is a different struggle to reflect these concerns in the final language of the TIMM outcome document.
Divergent concerns for Global South at Johannesburg and Jaipur
Coming to the Johannesburg II declaration on trade, the language is robust and it forcefully represents the concerns of the Global South. Consider paragraph eight which “reaffirms” support “for the open, transparent, fair, predictable, inclusive, equitable, non-discriminatory, and rules-based multilateral trading system with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) at its core, with special and differential treatment (S&DT) for developing countries, including Least Developed Countries.”
Almost the same language figures in the G20 TIMM, except for one vital difference that reinforces the concerns of the Global South on special and differential treatment. The G20 TIMM document reaffirmed “a rules-based, non-discriminatory, fair, open, inclusive, equitable, sustainable and transparent multilateral trading system, with the WTO at its core, is indispensable to advancing our shared objectives of inclusive growth, innovation, job creation and sustainable development.”
Under the Indian presidency of G20, one would have expected at least strong language on the continuation of special and differential treatment to reinforce the concerns of the developing and least-developed countries. Sadly, it seems to have been excluded from the TIMM document.
Aside from strengthening the special and differential treatment in the WTO rulebook, as demanded by more than 90 developing countries, the BRICS declaration calls for “concrete deliverables” at the upcoming 13th ministerial conference of the WTO in Abu Dhabi. “We call for the restoration of a fully and well-functioning two-tier binding WTO dispute settlement system accessible to all members by 2024, and the selection of new Appellate Body Members without further delay,” says the BRICS declaration.
India, which has constantly called for the restoration of the two-stage dispute settlement system, seemed unable to include strong language on this vital issue in the face of opposition from the US.
Sadly, the TIMM merely said: “We note the ongoing discussions on Dispute Settlement reform and remain committed to conducting discussions with a view to having a fully and well-functioning Dispute Settlement System, accessible to all members, by 2024.” Effectively, the above G20 language does not guarantee the restoration of the two-tier system or the Appellate Body. Without a binding two-tier system undergirding the WTO’s enforcement function, the WTO will be run on the principle of ‘might is right’ – which is what the US wants.
More importantly, the BRICS declaration, in paragraph nine, calls for “the need to make progress towards the achievement of a fair and market-oriented agricultural trading system, ending hunger, achieving food security and improved nutrition, promoting sustainable agriculture and food systems, and implement resilient agricultural practices” as well as the need to “deliver on agriculture reform in accordance with the mandate in Article 20 of the Agreement on Agriculture, while recognizing the importance of respecting the mandates with regards to a Permanent Solution on Public Stockholding (PSH) for food security purposes and special safeguard mechanism (SSM) for developing countries, including LDCs, in their respective negotiating contexts.”
Further, the Johannesburg declaration says, “BRICS members are also concerned with trade-restrictive measures which are inconsistent with WTO rules, including unilateral illegal measures such as sanctions, that affect agricultural trade.”
At the G20 TIMM meeting of senior officials a day before the actual ministerial meeting, the US opposed any language based on WTO-inconsistent measures. Therefore, it is unsurprising that India, the much-touted champion of the Global South, seemed unable to stop the US from inserting language that is inimical to the concerns of the developing countries.
Trade and environment
Another issue on which the BRICS declaration seemed more credible and relevant for the developing countries is on trade and environment. It says, “We oppose trade barriers including those under the pretext of tackling climate-change imposed by certain developed countries (as well as the WTO’s Director-General Ms Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala who has currently tasked the WTO Secretariat to prepare a framework for carbon-pricing without any ministerial mandate) and reiterate our commitment to enhancing coordination on these issues.”
It underlines that “measures taken to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss must be WTO-consistent and must not constitute a means of arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination or a disguised restriction on international trade and should not create unnecessary obstacles to international trade.”
“Any such measure must be guided by the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities (CBDR-RC), in the light of different national circumstances,” the BRICS declaration maintained. “We express our concern at any WTO inconsistent discriminatory measure that will distort international trade, risk new trade barriers, and shift the burden of addressing climate change and biodiversity loss to BRICS members and developing countries.”
In contrast, the G20 TIMM Jaipur Outcome Document, in paragraph nine, merely recalls that “trade and environment policies should be mutually supportive, consistent with WTO and multilateral environmental agreements. We further acknowledge the essential role of multilateral cooperation to effectively address common environmental and sustainable development challenges. We will engage in further discussions on trade and sustainability.” Surely, this diluted language does not augur well for the Southern countries in the coming days and months.
Of course, it can be argued that G20 is a grouping of major industrialised countries with limited say for developing countries, unlike the BRICS, but if India truly represents the voice of the Global South then it should have pushed for stronger language on key issues of developing countries.
Ravi Kanth Devarakonda is a senior journalist based in Geneva.
