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Global Civil society groups warned that new guidelines for the accession of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) could seriously harm, rather than help, the LDCs in their accession process, and governments should oppose the current package and send it back for re-negotiation and improvement.

South Africa's Deputy Director General from the Department of Trade and Industry, Mr. Xavier Carim, remarked that 'South African government's experience has shown that there was no clear relationship between signing Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) and increased inflows of FDI' at a WTO Public Forum event on international investment agreements organized by OWINFS on 25 September 2012.

In a presentation at the UNCTAD’s Trade and Development Board panel discussion on 18 September by Ambassador Faizel Ismail, Permanent Representative of South Africa to the WTO argue that the recent attempts by some policy makers to use the concept of Global Value Chains (GVCs) to make a case for increased trade liberalization is deeply flawed for three reasons: First because it attempts to bring back the notion of a self-regulating market that is disembedded from society and divorced from the asymmetries in economic power that characterize today’s interdependent global economy; Second, because it attempts to revive the discredited Washington Consensus; and third because it does not provide a framework for helping developing economies develop beyond their current comparative advantages.

Ambassador Jayant Dasgupta, Permanent Representative of India to the WTO speaks forum major issues at the event organized by OWINFS at WTO Public Forum on Doha and the Multilateral Trade System: From Impasse to Development? on 26 September. His speech covered key issues such as the current status of the negotiations, other initiatives being taken by WTO Members in achieving their market access ambitions outside the WTO, the prospects for Bali Ministerial in December 2013 and the new issues, the new challenges and on the prospects for development.

An expert panel session at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Public Forum addressed some key issues in the Doha negotiations, such as potential scenarios for the stalled talks in the next year or two, the new trade narrative of global value chains being espoused by some, and the issues of trade facilitation and a plurilateral services agreement being pushed by some developed countries.

Sign-on Letter with 38 International and 137 National Organizations from Across the Globe Delivered to Negotiators at UNCTAD XIII in Doha

Today, global civil society delivered a letter that calls on negotiators at the 13th quadrennial conference of the UN Conference on Trade and Development, UNCTAD XIII, to ensure that conference strengthens UNCTAD’s role on keys issues of global economic governance and financial reform.

The letter reads, in part:

The G20 is an unelected and select group of countries whose membership was originally drawn in response to the financial crises of the 1990s.1 The group came to its current position of prominence as a result of the latest wave of crises starting in 2007, as it had become clear that the G8 were incapable of responding without the collaboration of those from outside their number. The G20 has illegitimately proclaimed itself to be the premier forum of global economic governance for the future. In particular, the G20 seeks to dictate which bodies should be entrusted with responsibility for policing the global economy on its behalf. The G20’s policy agenda is driven primarily by the interests of global capital, as business leaders meet regularly in closed session with G20 ministers in the run-up to the G20 summits.G20 is trying to promote further liberalisation of trade, investment, finance and public services as a solution to the crisis. Recognizing that profound and fundamental change to the system is the ONLY solution to the crisis, member organisations and social movements of Our World Is Not For Sale make the following demands: