Special and differential treatment

Abstract

Introduction Development has always played an important role in GATT/WTO. The Preamble to GATT 1947 recognised the objective of ‘raising standards of living’. The Preamble to the Marrakesh Agreement signed in 1994 reiterated and expanded this concept, recognising the ‘need for positive efforts designed to ensure that developing countries, and especially the least developed among them, secure a share in the growth in international trade commensurate with the needs of their economic development’. In 2001, upon the launch of the Doha Round, the Ministerial Conference stated: ‘The majority of WTO members are developing countries. We seek to place their needs and interests at the heart of the Work Programme adopted in this Declaration’. Hence the name ‘Doha Development Agenda’. Central to the recognition of development needs in the WTO is the notion of ‘special and differential treatment’ (S&D) for developing countries. In contrast to the strong thread of non-discrimination running through the WTO agreements, S&D involves discrimination in favour of developing countries. This discrimination takes the form of both differential rights or obligations mandated by the WTO agreements themselves, and differential treatment accorded to developing countries by other Members. An example of the former is a WTO provision providing longer transition times (that is, time to implement a particular WTO obligation) to developing than to developed country Members. An example of the latter is preferential tariff treatment accorded by a developed country Member to a developing country Member.