The 12th WTO Ministerial Conference (MC12)

The main WTO decision-making body is the Ministerial Conferece, which normally meets every two years and brings together all WTO members. The Ministerial Conference can take decisions on all matters concerning any of the multilateral trade agreements.

The 12th WTO Ministerial Conference (MC12) was originally scheduled to take place from 8 to 11 June 2020 in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The MC12 will take place from 30 November to 3 December 2021 in Geneva, Switzerland.

Despite the pandemic, the Brazilian priorities for the next Ministerial Conferece remain unchanged. The country has established concrete results to be achieved in areas including agriculture, fisheries subsidies, e-commerce, investment facilitation, and services domestic regulations. In addition to advancing in its negotiating role at the WTO, Brazil believes it can work with issues regarding improved transparency and the quest for a final solution to the Organization’s dispute settlement system.

It should be noted that Brazil has sought to play a more active role in the WTO reform process, a topic that has been on the Organization’s agenda since the 11th Ministerial Conference, held in Buenos Aires in 2017. With this role, the country has aimed at keeping its historic proactive and leading position in substantial discussions and decision-making processes at the WTO. Brazil has worked on proposals for the proper inclusion of agricultural negotiations in the reform process and seeks to maintain a constructive dialogue with all the countries most enganged in the discussions.

Recent history

The Doha Development Round was launched in November 2001 with the aim to be a comprehensive round of trade negotiations, the first one within the WTO scope, with the promise of achieving concrete results in themes of interest to developing countries. Despite clear advances towards the multilateral trading system, the previous round (Uruguay) has failed to achieve satisfactory outcomes in areas of interest to developing countries, such as agriculture. In addition, it significantly reduced the policy space in that group of nations for public policies on development.

Intense negotiations conducted during the year 2013 culminated in a set of results approved by ministers at the 9th WTO Ministerial Conference, held in Bali in 2013. These results included the Trade Facilitation Agreement and four decisions/statemetns on agriculture ("general services" in developing countries, stockholding for food security programmes, tariff rate quota administration, and export subsidies).

At the 10th Ministerial Conference, held in Nairobi in 2015, members adopted a package of results including the historic decision to abolish  agricultural export subsidies, almost sixty years after the eliminiation of industrial products subsidies. The package also included decisions on public stockholding for food security purposes, special safeguard mechanism for developing countries, cotton, and issues relating to least-developed (LDCs), such as preferential rules of origin for LDCs,  preferential treatment for services and service providers from LDCs, and increasing LDCs’ participation  in services trade.

The Ministerial Declaration emerging out of the Nairobi Conference reflected a disagreement among the members on the Doha Development Agenda. Many of the members reaffirmed their commitment with the Doha Mandate while others expressed their support for the adoption of new approaches with a view to achieving important results at the WTO. In addition, it opened up the possibility of addressing new themes not covered by the Doha Round provided that there is consensus among members to bring in these issues. On the other hand, the Declaration evidenced the joint commitment of members to advance negotiations on the Doha pending issues, including those relating to its three agricultural pillars: market access, domestic support and export competition.

The Ministerial Declaration also included, at the initiative of Brazil, a paragraph on regional trade agreements stipulating the need to discuss the systemic implications of these agreements and their coherence with WTO rules. As regards new issues, some areas being considered include investment, e-commerce, defense of competition, and small and medium-sized enterprises.

At the 11th Ministerial Conference, held in Buenos Aires in 2017, Brazil emphasized the need to address agricultural issues, such as domestic support, the strengthening of the scientific basis for the use of sanitary and phytosanitary measures (preventing them from becoming unnecessary obstacles to trade), and other themes on the Doha Development Agenda. In addition, it engaged in discussions on new topics emerging from the launching of joint plurilateral initiatives (known as “Joint Statement Initiatives - JSIs”), which have been consolidated as forums for advancing discussions on MSMEs, investment facilitation and e-commerce.