they must be able to pursue agricultural policies that are supportive of their development
goals, poverty reduction strategies, food security and livelihood concerns.”
Market access. The Framework envisages a tiered formula under a single approach under
which deeper cuts will be made in higher tariffs, but with flexibilities for sensitive products.
There will be no general increase in tariff rate quotas, but the reduction or possible
elimination of in-quota tariffs and improved quota administration have been agreed as ways to
increase the fill rates of existing tariff quotas. Increased TRQ access will also form part of the
balanced package to ensure a substantial improvement in market access for sensitive products
where the tariff reductions will be lower than what would otherwise apply. The formula
approach envisaged for tariff reduction has a number of characteristics which remain to be
negotiated, including the number of bands, the thresholds for defining the bands, the type of
tariff reduction in each band and the number and treatment of sensitive products. S&D
treatment will be an integral part of all these elements of the negotiations. The Framework
also envisages that developing country Members will have the flexibility to designate an
appropriate number of products as Special Products, based on criteria of food security,
livelihood security and rural development needs which will be eligible for more flexible
treatment. The criteria and treatment of these Special Products are to be further elaborated
during the negotiation phase. Finally, the Framework envisages the creation of a Special
Safeguard Mechanism for use by developing country Members.
Domestic support. The Framework states that S&D treatment remains an integral component
of domestic support. It is agreed that the modalities to be developed will include longer
implementation periods and lower reduction coefficients for developing countries for all types
of trade-distorting domestic support. Continued access to the provisions under Article 6.2 will
be allowed. Reductions in de minimis are foreseen, but developing countries that allocate
nearly all of their de minimis programmes to subsistence and resource-poor farmers will be
exempt.
Export subsidies. Developing country Members will benefit from longer implementation
periods for the phasing out of all forms of export subsidies. Following the deadline for the
phasing out of export subsidies in general, a time limit, to be agreed, will be placed on their
continued access to the provisions of Article 9.4 permitting developing countries to provide
limited types of export subsidies even where no such subsidies had been provided before.
Whether these provisions provide an adequate response to the concerns expressed by
developing countries, and how to spell them out in ways which will make them operationally
effective, are the questions addressed in the remainder of the paper.
3. The justification for special and differential treatment
The original concept for S&D treatment for developing countries was developed in the
context of disciplines on manufactured products. Exemption from the disciplines applying to
developed country Members was justified as a variant of the infant industry argument, that the
domestic industries of developing country Members needed more time and support in order to
become sufficiently competitive to be able to stand on their own feet in competition with
firms from other countries. This fear of the basic uncompetitiveness of much developing
country agriculture in the face of the perceived competitive strengths of developed country
agro-food complexes can be found behind some of the demands for S&D treatment in
agriculture. But there are also a number of more specific arguments which are used to justify
flexibilities with respect to WTO disciplines on agricultural protection and support in
developing countries.
Global models generally find that the bulk of the gains to developing countries from
agricultural trade liberalisation come from their own policy reform, rather than from policy
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