Mark Linscott is the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for WTO and Multilateral Affairs.  Last Thursday, he was the first speaker at the GBD colloquium on "The WTO and the Art of the Possible: Anticipating the Nairobi Ministerial."  That biennial conference is now just a week away.  It is set to begin in Nairobi, Kenya, next Tuesday, December 15, and to conclude on Friday, the 18th of December.
 
Alas, Mr. Linscott's comment about this ministerial possibly being historic occurred in the portion of his remarks devoted to one of the more contentious issues the world's trade ministers will deal with next week, namely, how to handle the unresolved issues of the Doha Round.

Here is a bit more of what Mr. Linscott said on that topic:

In the earlier portion of his remarks, Mr. Linscott reviewed the progress made in the years following the establishment of the World Trade Agreement at Marrakesh in 1994, including among other things, the Agreement on Basic Telecommunications Services (1997), the Financial Services Agreement (1997) and the original Information Technology Agreement (1996), which Mr. Linscott described as "hugely transformational." 

Preparation.  Mr. Linscott had high praise for those involved in laying the groundwork for next week's ministerial conference and for Kenya's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Amina Mohamed, who will chair the Nairobi conference.  Having served previously as Kenya's ambassador to the WTO and in several key WTO positions, she is well known to all the players.  "Ambassador Mohamed has been fantastic," Mr. Linscott said, adding:

 As for the issues the ministers will confront, Mr. Linscott talked about some of them, including the following:

The Trade Facilitation Agreement.  Winning agreement on this issue was the breakthrough success of the Bali Ministerial in November 2013.  The challenge now - or one of them - is to get the agreement ratified and then implemented.  At this stage, 53 countries have ratified the agreement.  Guyana was the most recent country to ratify and was the first South American country to do so. 

When you are counting countries, 53 is a big number, but it is still a long way from the two-thirds of the WTO membership that will be needed in order for the agreement to go into effect.  We are not precisely sure of the required number of ratifications.  We note only that there are currently 162 members of the WTO.   The newest of those is Kazakhstan, which became a member on November 30.  But, back to the arithmetic, two-thirds of 162 is 108.

New Members.  Soon, the WTO will have 164 members  There are two who will be welcomed as members at the Nairobi Ministerial, namely Afghanistan and the Republic of Liberia. 

Expansion of the Information Technology Agreement.  Mr. Linscott expressed the wide-spread hope that the ITA expansion negotiations would reach a successful conclusion by or at the Nairobi Ministerial.  As of today, however, these very promising talks were still being held up over staging issues, specifically, China's continued insistence that she be allowed to hold back implementation, that is, to keep tariffs on a large number of covered products for as much as five to seven years. 

Environmental Goods Agreement.  Like the ITA expansion negotiations, this too is an effort to eliminate tariffs on a set list of products, specifically products which ameliorate environmental impacts.  Mr. Linscott said he expected that the ministers would "note substantial progress with respect to negotiations on environmental goods."

It is always darkest before the dawn they say, and, the with respect to the outlook for the Nairobi Ministerial conference, it seems to be getting quite dark indeed. Yesterday, for example, the Director-General of the WTO, Roberto Azevêdo told the members that "We currently, today, have no deliverables for Nairobi - either on the potential outcomes that we identified, or on the Ministerial Declaration."

It is probably fair to say that everyone who cares is well aware of the fact that this isn't going to be an easy conference.  The observation that "WTO members are finding it hard to develop a shared vision on key issues" has to be one of the kinder expressions of the dilemma.  It was written by three very thoughtful people at the World Bank - Anabel Gonzalez, Selina Jackson, and Marcus Bartley Johns - in an article they posted yesterday.  The authors are convinced of the long-term importance of the WTO and upbeat about several initiatives.  They don't duck the obvious conclusion, however, namely that the upcoming Nairobi ministerial is "unlikely to deliver significant progress." 

Like any such event, the Nairobi Ministerial is a testing ground.  The question is who and what is being tested?  At Bali in 2013, one of those being tested was the new Director-General, Roberto Azevêdo.  He passed.  Nairobi is not a test of his ability or his dedication.  No, Nairobi will be a test not so much of the leadership of the organization but of the members.

China is being tested. China's representatives will have to decide whether they are willing to pay a small price - normal staging for most ITA products -- for the economic gains they stands to harvest from ITA expansion and, perhaps more importantly, for the mantle of leadership China claims to desire.

And the developing countries of the WTO will be tested.  Theirs is an even more difficult test, and it has to do with whether or not they actually value the institution of the WTO.  Like everyone else in the world, they will know before their ministers board their respective airplanes that the membership as a whole will not go along with a simple continuation of the Doha Round.  The question is, will they work constructively to fashion an alternative approach, one that can clear the high bar of consensus? 

We hope they do.  We hope that is how things will work out, but unfortunately one cannot rule out less appealing scenarios.   The angry rhetoric of the Cancun Ministerial of 2003 is one possible template.  We don't think it will come to that.  If it does, however, the institution will suffer, as will the value of every country's membership.  

From Mr. Linscott's remarks.  Today's quote was taken from GBD, non-published tape and transcript of this portion of the referenced December 3 event.

Azevedo to the General Council takes you to the Director-General's remarks to the WTO membership yesterday in Geneva.

In the lead up to Nairobi is a link to the World Bank article quoted above.