The Fourth Ministerial Conference of the WTO was held in Doha, Qatar in 2001. At this conference, trade ministers launched the Doha Development Agenda to continue negotiations on agriculture, services, and other issues, and to promote the interests of developing countries. They agreed to negotiations on reducing agricultural subsidies and increasing market access. They also passed a declaration on public health that confirmed flexibilities for developing countries in implementing intellectual property rules for pharmaceuticals.

1. Doha Ministerial
Conference 2001
Ahmed Farah

2. Introduction Doha 2001
• The Fourth Ministerial Conference of the World
Trade Organization, also known as the WTO
Fourth Ministerial Conference,
• was held at the Sheraton Doha Hotel and
Resort, Doha, Qatar from November 9–13, 2001.
• At this conference, ministers from all WTO
members launched the Doha Development
Agenda.

3. Before Doha
• Before the Doha ministerial, negotiations had
already been under way on trade in agriculture
and services
• These ongoing negotiations had been required
under the last round of multilateral trade
negotiations (the Uruguay Round, 1986–1994)
• However, some countries, including the United
States, wanted to expand the agriculture and
services talks to allow trade-offs and thus achieve
greater trade liberalization.

4. Before Doha
• The first WTO ministerial conference which
was held in Singapore in 1996, established
permanent working groups on four issues
• Transparency in government procurement
• trade facilitation (customs issues)
• trade and investment , and
• trade and competition.
• These became known as the Singapore issues.

5. Before Doha
• These issues were pushed at successive
ministerial by the European Union, Japan and
Korea, and opposed by most developing
countries.
• Since no agreement was reached, the
developed nations pushed that any new trade
negotiations must include these issues

6. Before Doha
• The negotiations were intended to start at
the ministerial conference of 1999 in Seattle,
USA, and be called the Millennium Round
• but, due to several different events
including protest activity outside the conference
(the so-called "Battle of Seattle"), the
negotiations were never started.
• Due to the failure of the Millennium Round, it
was decided that negotiations would not start
again until the next ministerial conference in
2001 in Doha, Qatar.

7. Before Doha
• Just months before the Doha ministerial, the
United States had been attacked by terrorists
on 11 September 2001.
• Some government officials called for greater
political cohesion and saw the trade
negotiations as a means toward that end

8. Doha Round

9. • The Fourth Ministerial Conference of the World
Trade Organization
• At the conference, trade ministers agreed to
undertake a new round of multilateral trade
negotiations.
• The ministers passed two declarations:-
• The first, the main declaration folded the ongoing
negotiations in agriculture and services into a
broader agenda, which is commonly known as
the Doha Development Round.

10. Doha Round
• In addition. the Doha agenda included the
topic of industrial tariffs, topics of interest to
developing countries, changes to WTO rules,
and other provisions.
• The second declaration dealt with
the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of
Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and allow
government to be flexible of TRIPS to deal
with health problems.

11. Ministerial Declaration
• The Doha Ministerial Declaration mandate for
agriculture calls for comprehensive negotiations
aimed at substantial improvements in market
access; reductions of, with a view to phasing out,
all forms of export subsidies; and substantial
reductions in trade-distorting domestic support.
• These topics — domestic support, export
subsidies, and market access — have become
known as the three pillars of the agricultural
negotiations.

12. Intellectual property declaration
• The Doha Declaration on Public Health sought to
alleviate developing country dissatisfaction with
aspects of the TRIPS regime.
• It delayed the implementation of patent system
provisions for pharmaceutical products for least
developed countries (LDCs) until 2016.
• The declaration committed member states to
interpret and implement the agreement to
support public health and to promote access to
medicines for all.

13. Intellectual property declaration
• The Declaration recognized certain
“flexibilities” in the TRIPS agreement to allow
each member to grant compulsory licenses for
pharmaceuticals
• and to determine what constitutes a national
emergency, expressly including public health
emergencies such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and
tuberculosis or other epidemics

14. Conclusion
• The main issues of Doha conference in 2001 are
as flowing:-
• Reforming agricultural subsidies
• Ensuring that new liberalization in the global
economy respects the need for sustainable
economic growth in developing countries
• Improving developing countries' access to global
markets for their exports

15. Conclusion
• The Trade Facilitation Agreement
• The agriculture pillar comprises 4
decisions/declarations covering:
– Food Security
– General services
– Export competition
– Tariff Rate Quota (TRQ) administration