THE PERCEIVED LOSS OF "SOVEREIGNTY" DUE TO WTO ACCORDS:
SHOULD PARLIAMENTARIANS BE CONCERNED?

In recent years, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has established a tradition of holding annual public symposia where participants from governments, parliaments, civil society, the business sector, academia and the media jointly reflect upon the functioning of the multilateral trading system and analyse the institutional state of the WTO. The IPU has been associated with the WTO public symposia. On a number of occasions, it has organized parliamentary events as part of their overall programmes.

The 2005 WTO Public Symposium was held in Geneva from 20 to 22 April and took on special significance as it coincided with the tenth anniversary of the establishment of the WTO. In keeping with the tradition, the IPU organized an interactive parliamentary panel within the framework of the WTO Symposium. The panel discussion took place on 22 April 2005 and focused on the theme The WTO at 10. The perceived loss of "sovereignty" due to WTO accords: Should parliamentarians be concerned?

The choice of this theme was much influenced by the recently published report entitled The future of the WTO: Addressing institutional challenges in the new millennium, prepared by the Consultative Board to the WTO Director-General, which devoted a whole chapter to the issue of the perceived loss of "sovereignty" as a result of WTO accords. The authors of the report observed that there was a perception, often amplified in political and media circles, that States were progressively losing their ability to decide for themselves their own policy directions and priorities, and that this was so because of WTO restrictions on their policy space. The authors concluded however that, contrary to this perception, in committing to the WTO procedures and principles, governments were returning to themselves a degree of "sovereignty" that had been lost through the process of globalization. If they were partly losing their capacity to regulate domestically, governments were reclaiming some control of their economic destinies at the multilateral level

This issue of the perceived loss of "sovereignty" is of course of special interest to legislators, who as elected representatives of the people have their own - and very important - share of responsibility in these matters. This alone explains why the panel discussion was well attended and provided much food for thought.

The moderator of the panel was Mr. Enrique Barón Crespo, President of the European Parliament (EP) from 1989 to 1992 and currently Chairman of the EP's Committee on International Trade, which follows WTO negotiations. Members of the panel included Ms. Laurence Boisson de Chazournes, Professor of International Law at the University of Geneva; Mr. Anthony Hill, former Ambassador of Jamaica to the United Nations Office at Geneva; Mr. Mohammed Khoshchehreh, member of the Majlis Shoraye Eslami, the parliament of the Islamic Republic of Iran; and Mr. Kimmo Sasi, member of the Finnish parliament and representative in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

Full texts of their presentations are available on the WTO website.