India has protested against the process followed by the chair of the fisheries subsidies negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) in which information on ways to attain a conceivable result was collected through a questionnaire from ambassadors of 50 countries in their personal capacities.
New Delhi’s statement assumes significance as the members of the multilateral organisation aim to arrive at a deal to curb harmful fishing subsidies ahead of the 12th ministerial conference of the WTO from June 12-15. India is pushing hard for special and differentiated treatment in the agreement.
Calling the process “grossly erroneous” that “lacks credibility”, New Delhi told the WTO in an informal meeting of the heads of delegations that it was unclear how the samplings were done, which members were called for and the criteria used to select them.
Lack of transparency in the process can lead us nowhere. If any, it will only create mistrust and confusion. “The whole process, therefore, to us lacks credibility,” India said at the meeting held earlier this month, adding that this approach is “quite problematic in a multilateral setting.”
India said that ambassadors at the WTO in Geneva are not in their private capacities but are representatives of their respective governments, and hence, their personal opinions do not matter.
“We are not attending a statistical class, and… samplings can be played around with by choosing 50 members of my choice and depicting something on the screen,” said Brajendra Navnit, India’s ambassador to the WTO.