Analytical Note, May 2002
Review of the Existing Special and Differential Treatment Provisions: Implementing the Doha Mandate.
By placing Special and Differential Treatment (hereafter referred to as ‘S&DT’) at the heart of the WTO Agreements, the Doha Ministerial Declaration explicitly acknowledged that S&DT is a fully accepted core principle in the WTO legal regime.
Special and Differential Treatment should not be understood as a set of concessions made in favour of developing countries — and the objectives recalled in the preamble of the Doha Ministerial Declaration are clear about this– but as a right that these countries acquired in order to have a chance of participating in the multilateral trading system.
This article was tagged: Agriculture, Dispute Settlement, Doha Development Round, Flexibilities, GATS, GATT, Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Safeguards, Special and Differential Treatment, TRIPS, World Trade Organization (WTO)
