Negotiations aimed at liberalizing global trade broke down in July after ministers from Australia, Brazil, the European Union, India, Japan and the United States failed to resolve their differences on tariff and subsidy cuts for agricultural and industrial products.

“There’s no beating around the bush,” the World Trade Organization’s director general Pascal Lamy told reporters at a press conference following the meeting. “We’re in dire straits.”

The so-called Doha Round of talks, launched in the Qatari capital in 2001, has been suspended to allow for a “time out” in negotiations, and can only resume when progress can be made, Lamy said.

Given this setback, he said WTO members “most certainly” will not meet their goal of completing the Doha Round by the end of 2006.

“The round is not dead, but I’d say it’s definitely between intensive care and the crematorium,” Indian Commerce Minister Kamal Nath said at a press briefing.

He said unless member countries can “bridge the gap in mind sets” between those such as India, who are stressing the development aspects of the round, and others such as the U.S., who are focussed on securing greater access to foreign markets, “there seems to be no future for this round.”

“To be honest, I don’t see any possibility that (restarting the talks) will happen anytime around the corner,” said European Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel. “It is a big failure. Whether it’s going to be definitive, only time will tell.”

Charting the Course

The decision to suspend the Doha Round will affect negotiations and deadlines across the board, including talks aimed at further liberalizing the trade in services, such as education, in the General Agreement on Trade in Services.

While GATS talks were initiated prior to the Doha Round as part of a built-in work agenda, in practical terms they have been linked to the broader “single-undertaking” of Doha talks whereby negotiations in one sector are not completed until all negotiations are finalized.

David Robinson, associate executive director of CAUT, was in Geneva following suspension of the talks. Robinson, acting on the behalf of Education International, a global federation that represents more than 29 million teachers and education workers, was asked to seek clarification on the status of GATS negotiations and to lobby delegations on the potential dangers of including education services in the agreement.

“Trade negotiators indicated that the suspension of the Doha Round only means that GATS deadlines are off the table,” says Robinson. “It’s very likely that informal talks will now replace formal negotiations.” In fact, a modus operandi that as Robinson put it, “will pretty much make it more difficult for us to keep track of developments.”

He said Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. have been aggressively pressing other countries to open up post-secondary education services in the agreement.

“If countries were to make full GATS commitments in post-secondary education, a broad range of policies and regulations would be at risk, from rules requiring preferential hiring of citizens to government subsidies for domestic and public institutions,” he said.

“GATS is a commercial agreement that would impose commercial rules on the provision of education. It strikes at the very heart of academic autonomy and the ability of governments to regulate in the public interest.”

He also warns that additional dangers were arising prior to suspension of the Doha talks. Proposals were tabled to develop new GATS rules on “domestic regulation” intended to require that regulations affecting technical standards, qualification and licensing requirements do not constitute unnecessary barriers to trade in services.

The proposed disciplines could have a direct impact on regulations affecting education in Canada, Robinson said.

“Domestic regulation obligations could affect school licensing and accreditation, as well as quality assurance standards. Similarly, qualification requirements could have an impact on universities and colleges which are often responsible for recognizing qualifications.”

He said a draft text of the domestic regulation disciplines, released in July, is alarming because of the reference it makes to the development of a “necessity test” for judging regulatory measures. A necessity test would require governments, if challenged, to prove their regulatory measures do not constitute undue barriers to trade and are necessary to achieve policy goals that cannot be achieved in a less trade-restrictive manner.

The implication is that if such challenges are launched, WTO dispute panels would have to decide whether a regulation is necessary and therefore whether it’s “legal” under GATS.

Looking to the Future

Robinson says while the threat has not diminished, suspension of WTO negotiations should be welcomed.

“Clearly, if the talks had proceeded on schedule and on the basis of what was on the table, we would be facing the prospect of a very bad deal,” he points out.

At the same time, he warns, negotiations could be relaunched at any moment. “We’ll need to monitor developments very carefully, but in the meantime the suspension of GATS deadlines buys us important time to build more awareness about the dangers posed to education in such an agreement.”