Legal Access To Developing Markets Boosted By WTO Talks

by Robin Pilgrim, LawAndTax-News.com, London

11 January 2006

Speaking with regard to the recently-held Doha Round of World Trade Organisation talks, representatives from the UK's legal community have welcomed the progress made in opening up legal access to key developing markets such as India.

According to the UK Law Society's Law Gazette news service, agreement was reached at the December talks in Hong Kong on increasing liberalisation via a 'plurilateral' rather than bilateral approach.

The Law Society's head of EU and WTO affairs, June O'Keeffe explained that:

"There are 149 members of the WTO, and the bilateral approach has been tried, and has not worked. The plurilateral approach will add more pressure. If you have, say, the EU, the US and Australia all telling a [developing] country that they want it to open up its market, that will have more impact than if just one country is saying it."

"But it depends on how far the negotiations go, and a lot is tied up with the concessions the developing countries are looking for on agriculture. It depends how far the EU is prepared to go on that."

Ms O'Keeffe went on to suggest to the Law Gazette that:

"There are signs that India may open up its market, which would be a major coup. That is a market we have been negotiating with for years and years."

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