The final week of CCT Geneva 2009 kicked off with yet another jam-packed day of speakers from academia, WIPO and the WTO. The day concluded with an intense (yeah, it got real hot) mock trade deliberation. Xavier Castañer of the University of Lausanne lectured on the influence of creative industries in international business decisions. Donna Hill of the World Intellectual Property Organization broke down the creative services industry country by country, and Martin Roy of the World Trade Organization outlined the reasons why member states are unable to reach a consensus on audio/visual services in the General Agreement for Trade and Services.
Moderators Dr. Singh and Dr. Xavier Castañer look on as Kasia of the United States takes charge
The day culminated with a mock trade deliberation aimed towards collectively coming to consensus for a global trade agreement. We were divided into three camps tasked with this challenge. They were: sovereign states, multi-national companies, and a civil society composed of global special interest from around the world. After each group met independently to outline their trade demands we reconvened to hammer out a collective trade agreement while Dr. Singh, and Dr. Castañer served as moderators.
Civil Society member, Nargis, adamantly objects to loose definition of "liberalization"
Boy, negotiations were tough. Civil Service represented so many interests that they simply could not get it together. Varying interest didn’t keep Big Business from negotiating as a cohesive unit. They knew what they wanted and played the game like smooth operators. Meanwhile, the US dominated the discourse while the remaining sovereign states stood on the sidelines choosing their battles carefully. Many items on the agenda were tabled, while subtle differences in wording proved to be major points of contention and the ensuing deliberations only ate precious chunks of time. In the end, we essentially agreed to eventually agree on setting a date and location for future deliberations and negotiations. This exercise brilliantly demonstrated the challenges of the Doha rounds and the complexity of the General Agreement on Trade and Services. Having taken part in an experience where fifteen emotionally disconnected graduate students failed to achieve a very basic consensus, we are able to relate on a very ephemeral level the difficulty and the challenges that 198 impassioned nations with a myriad of interests must reconcile when dealing and deliberating complex and sophisticated issues that will impact billions of lives.
