FROM THE TELEGRAPH OF 10 AUGUST 2005
Pascal prepares
Nations are equal in theory and
fractious in practice; the politics of international institutions can be
Byzantine and convoluted. As a result, international organizations have evolved
methods of choosing heads that are democratic in form but mirror the underlying
balance of power. Thus the secretary general of the United Nations must be
acceptable to the US and is chosen as infrequently as possible. The headships
of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are confined to the US and
Europe, their foremost financiers.
The World Trade Organization
(WTO) missed evolving such conventions because its forebear, the International
Trade Organization, did not get the approval of the US Congress in the 1940s
and continued as an ad hoc General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade till 1996.
Its test came when the choice of a director general became due in 1999. The
member countries were divided between Supachai Panikthadi, the Thai commerce
minister and Mike Moore, once Prime Minister of New Zealand – and earlier, its
minister for America’s Cup, when it had the ambition of winning this ultimate
prize in yachting. The US did not trust Panikthadi, who it felt came from the
Japanese sphere of influence. New trade negotiations were being talked about; the
US was keen that they should be organized so as to open up markets for
services. It felt more comfortable with Moore in this role.
In the compromise that was worked
out: Mike Moore became director general first, followed by Panikthadi. As the
tenure of the pair neared its end in 2004, the member countries worked out a
procedure for selection of their successor, involving a beauty contest –
candidates got two months to exhibit themselves to members – and a
behind-the-scenes consultation process to establish who had most support.
That process has led to the
appointment of Pascal Lamy, a member of France’s elite financial civil service,
confidante of Jacque Delors, and a habitué of Brussels, the capital of the
European Union. He has already chosen his cabinet of four deputy directors
general – amongst them, Harsha Vardhana Singh, who left the coveted post of the
WTO director general’s chef de cabinet in 1997 to take up the secretaryship of
the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India that was just being set up. After
eight years of fruitless labour, he obviously thinks that international trade
diplomacy would be less frustrating than telecom regulation.
Moore started preparations for a new round at the
ministerial meeting at Doha in December 2001. But the developing countries were
deeply suspicious of WTO venturing into what were called Singapore issues –
trade and investment, competition policy, and transparency in government
procurement. They mounted an attack on agricultural subsidies, on which
industrial countries would concede little. The debate continued in the Cancun
ministerial in 2003, but led nowhere.
This is the background against
which Lamy must now prepare for the ministerial in Hong Kong this coming
December, which will test all his brahminical skills. As he looks across Lake
Geneva from his office window, he must wonder when the next storm will cross
the waters. But then, he is no stranger to stormy waters.
