By Lars Brink

This paper examines the commitments taken by the New Members with regard to the WTO Agreement on Agriculture, the extent of agricultural policy reform they have undertaken, their participation in the WTO Committee on Agriculture, and the exceptional provisions proposed regarding the application of reform to some New Members in the negotiations on agriculture under the Doha Development Agenda (DDA). The examination also extends to some of the countries currently in the process of accession.

The purpose is to illustrate how some New Members might be able to use particular dimensions of the New-Member provisions suggested in negotiations, and the possible implications for the effectiveness of New Members’ potential DDA commitments in agriculture in helping to achieve the objectives of the DDA. The key conclusion is that a deferral might need to apply to the implementation of some of the DDA reduction commitments of a few recently acceded Members, where reductions on individual tariff lines or on Total AMS under accession commitments would otherwise overlap in time with the implementation of DDA commitments.

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