The Fourth Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) began on November 9, 2001 in Doha, the capital of Qatar. The Japanese delegation to the Ministerial was headed by Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Takeo Hiranuma. In addition to METI, the Japanese delegation also comprised officials from eight other central government agencies, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Senior Vice-Minister Shigeo Uetake) and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (Minister Tsutomu Takebe). The Ministerial was originally scheduled to wrap up on November 13, but had to be extended by one day. In the end, however, participants finally did manage to come to an agreement on the issue of a WTO New Round, an object which had eluded them at the previous WTO Ministerial in Seattle. In the wake of the 9-11 terrorist attacks in the United States, there were heightened security concerns for the Ministerial because it was being held in the Middle East, but the event went off without any security incidents of any sort.
The following section summarizes the process leading up to the Doha Ministerial and the results thereof, devoting a special focus to the WTO New Round.

1. The road to Doha

(1) What is a "Round"?

The WTO's predecessor organization, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), provided members with a venue for negotiations on trade liberalization. Each GATT negotiation was referred to as a "round" (see Attachment 1). Trade liberalization, in the classical sense of the term, involves an effort to lower customs tariffs. But two rounds ago (the Tokyo Round) the GATT expanded the scope of its concerns and began to focus less on tariffs and more on domestic measures. Its work since that time has been divided into two categories: "market access" and "rules" (see Attachment 2). Then came the Uruguay Round, which was still more comprehensive in scope. Market access talks focused for the first time on agriculture and services. In the rules talks, the Uruguay Round established new rules on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS) and trade-related investment measures (TRIMS). The Uruguay Round was a watershed achievement because it paved the way for the establishment of the WTO.
Some time after the conclusion of the Uruguay Round in 1994, WTO members began seeking to launch a "New Round" in order to work for further liberalization.

(2) Critical review of the Seattle Ministerial and preparations for Doha

The Third WTO Ministerial Conference was held in Seattle from November 30 to December 3, 1999. The top item on the agenda at the conference was the effort to launch a New Round, determine its scope, and decide on a negotiating modality . But as was reported by the news media in such sensational fashion, the conference was dogged by massive street demonstrations that led to a call-up of the National Guard. Against that chaotic backdrop, the Ministerial came to an end without any agreement on a New Round.
Failure in Seattle to achieve the key aim of the Third Ministerial spurred a lot of serious reflection, which led to the following approaches being taken in the run-up to the Fourth Ministerial in Doha.

1) An effort was made to address the concerns of developing nations. The WTO is actually very advantageous for developing nations in one sense, because its rule-based system puts them on equal footing with the major powers. On the other hand, developing nations are very dissatisfied with the outcome of the Uruguay Round, which they feel was disadvantageous to them in many different ways. At Seattle, the smoldering dissatisfaction of the developing nations erupted when they were excluded from certain closed-door sessions. After Seattle, the WTO took three actions to address the concerns of developing nations. The WTO's developed members have agreed to: (i) re-examine items that developing nations have demanded be revised without negotiations because they are disadvantageous to developing nations (these items involve implementation of the WTO agreement, for which reason they are known as "implementation issues"); (ii) provide technical assistance to strengthen the ability of the developing nations to implement their WTO commitments (a process known as "capacity building"); and (iii) offer market access assistance to the WTO's LDC members (LDC = least-developed countries).
As a result of these maneuverings with respect to the concerns of developing nations in the run-up to the Doha Ministerial, in addition to the Doha Declaration, the WTO also released two separate documents, a Decision on Implementation-Related Issues and Concerns detailing decisions taken in Doha regarding implementation issues, and a Ministerial Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health. Both of these documents will be described in greater detail below. Both of these documents were adopted at the conference without much controversy. Also, a big effort was made to ensure transparency in preparations for the conference as well as during the Ministerial itself, for which reason developing nations did not have major complaints this time around.

2) There was also a great deal of critical reflection in the run-up to the Doha Ministerial concerning efforts by the WTO's developed members, especially the parties to the quadrilateral meetings (Japan, the United States, EU, and Canada), to achieve consensus and cooperation amongst themselves. Without consensus between the quadrilateral members who are responsible for more than half of world's trade, it would be impossible for the WTO to operate smoothly, and there would be no hope for a New Round. Prior to Seattle, while there were bilateral understandings, the four had achieved almost nothing in the way of quadrilateral cooperation. As a result, the developed nations entered the Seattle Ministerial with their separate positions. Prior to Doha, however, they held a Quadrilateral Ministers meeting in Paris in May 2001, and followed it up with gatherings at the sub-ministerial and bureau level, and stayed in close contact by telephone. Thanks to these efforts, they succeeded in working out a considerable degree of coordination in positions that had been fairly far apart to start with.

3) The WTO also focused on developing an appropriate response to anti-globalism. The WTO is an organization that supports the process of globalization, but globalization has elicited opposition from people with a wide variety of concerns, including the environment, labor and other human rights-related issues, and culture. This opposition erupted in street protests in Seattle, but there was little disturbance in Doha, partly because the Qatar government only allowed NGOs to send one representative apiece to WTO functions, citing a limited availability of facilities for handling a large number of participants. In that sense, it cannot really be said that the WTO response was fully adequate, and it seems likely that the organization will have to take measures in the future to deal with the issue head-on.
Perhaps the biggest reason for the success achieved in Doha was the detailed preparatory action taken, as described above. The draft document for the Seattle Declaration was extremely long, and contained a huge number of unresolved (bracketed) items going into the Ministerial. Prior to the Doha Ministerial, in contrast, a host of active measures were taken, including two ministerial-level preparatory meetings (in Mexico and Singapore). The draft declaration was succinct, and there were very few brackets or issues requiring a political resolution. In addition, it deserves noting that there was probably a strong feeling among the nations that the Ministerial could not be allowed to fail again because the international community needed to demonstrate solidarity in the wake of the 9-11 terrorist attacks.

2. Achievements of the Doha Ministerial, and a look to the future

(1) A New Round with a broad agenda

A number of events were held that year (2001) at which we saw no opposition to a New Round put forward. These included the OECD Ministerial Conference, the Geneva summit, and the APEC meetings. A New Round was actively called for in a string of declarations. At the same time, however, there was considerable dispute over what should be included on the agenda for New Round negotiations. The United States, for example, called for market access negotiations focusing primarily on agriculture and services. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, agricultural exporting nations were keen for further liberalization of the agricultural sector. On another front, many developing nations were strongly opposed to a broad-ranging new agenda (with its rules on investments and the environment, for example), while Japan and the EU argued that a New Round would require precisely just that sort of agenda. Differences of this sort were many, and a lot of work had to be done to bring the parties together.
In the end, the WTO members agreed to take up a broad agenda designed to address the many issues that will be facing the international community in the 21st century. The negotiations are scheduled to last for about three years before being brought to a conclusion in January 2005. Some time during 2003 the WTO will hold its Fifth Ministerial Conference (set to take place in Mexico), and this event is expected to serve as an interim review of the negotiations.
The main points in the documents adopted at the Doha Ministerial are listed in Attachment 3, and can be summarized as follows.

1) Market access
Taking fully into account the special needs and interests of developing and least-developed country participants, WTO members agreed to negotiations which shall aim to reduce or as appropriate eliminate tariffs on industrial commodities (non-agricultural products). Product coverage shall be comprehensive and without a priori exclusions. As for agriculture and services, many of the accords agreed during the Uruguay Round specify future dates for continuing review or negotiations of a wide range of specific sectors or subject areas. This is the WTO's so-called "built-in agenda." Negotiations on agriculture were accompanied by controversy regarding the treatment of export subsidies. Without prejudging the outcome of negotiations, the participants agreed to comprehensive negotiations aimed at "reductions of, with a view to phasing out, all forms of export subsidies."

2) WTO rules
In the light of the increasing application of these instruments (especially in anti-dumping actions) by members, the WTO agreed to negotiations aimed at strengthening AD-related rules, a course of action which Japan has pushed for strongly.
In addition, the creation of new rules to deal with 21st-century issues was another key focus of discussions. In the end, an agreement was reached to begin preparing for negotiations on "trade and investment," "trade and competition," and other such issues after the next Ministerial Conference. Dispute over the issue of "trade and the environment" continued all the way until the end of the Doha Ministerial. In this area, the members agreed to negotiations on the relationship between existing WTO rules and specific trade obligations set out in multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). In the field of electronic commerce, the members agreed to instruct the General Council to consider the most appropriate institutional arrangements for handling the Work Programme on Electronic Commerce.

(2) Addressing the concerns of developing nations / WTO accession of China and Taiwan

In addition to concluding an agreement to launch a WTO New Round, the Doha Ministerial Declaration also included: (1) a Decision on Implementation-Related Issues and Concerns; and (2) a Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health.
The former puts forward solutions and sets the direction of future efforts in dealing with implementation issues. The latter, brought on in response to the AIDS and other contagious epidemics, is a political declaration (details provided in Attachment 3) on the protection of intellectual property rights and access to critically important medicines under the TRIPS (trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights) Agreement. (The declaration is a response to the concerns of developing nations, which have argued that the TRIPS Agreement has helped to make medications for AIDS and other diseases so expensive as to deny developing nations access to them.)
These documents are clearly intended primarily to address the concerns of developing nations, but the Doha Ministerial Declaration itself does likewise in no small measure in its statements regarding the WTO New Round. WTO Director-General Mike Moore is fond of such phrases as "the Doha development agenda" and "the Doha development round," and it seems likely that the concerns of developing nations will continue to be a key focus of WTO negotiations.
In addition, as almost everyone is aware, China and Taiwan were officially admitted to the WTO in Doha. The impact of their WTO membership is not the main subject of this paper, so we will not elaborate further upon the matter here, except to note that the WTO, by admitting China and Taiwan, has taken a step closer to becoming a truly global body.

(3) Evaluating the Doha Ministerial: A look at the outstanding issues

Japan has long argued that the New Round should have a broad-ranging agenda because such an agenda would be best not only for Japan, but for most other WTO members as well. Our government is very satisfied with the Doha Ministerial in this sense, since we basically achieved the type of New Round agenda that we were seeking. In addition, the decision to begin the New Round negotiations sends out a very encouraging message at a time when the global economy is in a very uncertain state following the shocking terrorist attacks of September 11.
In the future, in addition to actively pursuing concrete proposals, Japan intends to play a lead role in negotiations, keeping in close contact with both developed and developing nations, thereby contributing to improvement of WTO rules and further liberalization of trade. It will also be necessary for our government, in the midst of this process, to secure results that are in line with Japan's national interests.

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