With the breakdown of the WTO’s multilateral talks in Geneva known as the Doha Round, anti-poverty and fair trade campaigners appear divided over the implications for developing nations. Some WTO critics say the decision to suspend the talks indefinitely may be in the best interests of poor countries.

“This will be welcome news to millions of people around the world who feared that a WTO deal would have further impoverished the world’s poorest people and caused irreparable damage to the environment,” said Friends of the Earth International in a statement on Monday. The group says that if more natural resources are traded internationally instead of being available for use locally, this could increase poverty for millions of people. Others argue that the talks’ collapse may not benefit poor nations because they are tied to a trade system that gives greater access to rich nations in developing markets.

“Developing countries have much to gain from an agreement promoting more free and fair trade,” said Antoine Bouet, an analyst with International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington. Bouet argues that a Doha Development Round that grants poor countries “full access to wealthy-country markets,” in which access for the so-called least developed countries to wealthy-country markets is increased from 97 per cent of imports to 100 per cent, and which enacts the lowest possible tariffs for “sensitive and special” agricultural products, would bring gains to poor nations. The main hurdle that led to the breakdown of talks among trade diplomats from six key countries and blocs — the US, the EU, Japan, Brazil, India and Australia — was the agricultural subsidies that rich nations give to their farm companies.

“All rich countries promised was a repackaging of existing domestic support rather than real cuts to the amount of money going to rich farmers and corporations,” said Aftab Alam Khan of the fair trade group ActionAid. This rigidity has led developing nations to lose hope of securing a better deal in the important agriculture sector, some observers say. “With the livelihood of two billion farmers around the world hanging in the balance, many of them living on less than one dollar a day, developing countries expected real improvements in agricultural trade rules,” said Raymond Offenheiser, of Oxfam America.

Other analysts say that the injustice of the proposals goes well beyond agriculture into other areas, like services and manufactured goods. Kimberly Elliott of the Centre for Global Development argues that the derailment of the Doha Round means that proposals put forward to lubricate multilateral talks and to help the poorest countries, such as aid for trade and duty-free access for the world’s poorest nations, will now be frozen. Despite some differences, most civil society groups seem to agree that the breakdown of the talks serves as an opportunity for all parties to reassess the concept of free trade and the strategies by rich nations. — IPS