Acronyms Beyond Comprehension
(ABCs) By Paranjoy Guha Thakurta
NEW DELHI - Ask Sompal Chaudhuri, a farmer
in western Uttar Pradesh, what he thinks of the
World Trade Organization (WTO) and he will tell
you that those three letters, in a language he
does not understand, have something to do with
dwindling demand for the mustard oil seed he
grows.
Beyond that, WTO, or for that
matter the whole alphabet soup of acronyms - TRIPS
(trade-related aspects of intellectual property
rights), TRIMS (trade-related investment
measures), NAMA (non-agricultural market access),
ROO (rules of origin), ATC (Agreement on Textiles
and Clothing), GATS (general agreement
on
trade in services) and SPS (sanitary and
phytosanitary) - make no sense whatever.
"I just hope that our babus
[bureaucrats] understand these things and get us a
better deal, but it seems they know little about
farming and have even less interest in trade," he
said.
"The complexities of the WTO are not
understood even by well-educated individuals,"
said Pradeep S Mehta, secretary general of the
Consumer Unity and Trust Society (CUTS)
International, a research and advocacy-oriented
non-governmental organization (NGO) based in the
Indian city of Jaipur and specializing in World
Trade Organization issues.
Mehta recalled
an instance when a senior civil servant from the
government of India asked him what the word
"acquis" meant. "I, too, was frankly
stumped," said Mehta, explaining the word could
not be located in a dictionary of legal terms.
"Eventually we discovered that acquis is a
French word referring to the total body of law in
the European Union that has been cumulatively
assembled so far."
It is on such shaky
terminological grounds that the futures of large
numbers of people - some 800 million farmers,
artisans and industrial workers in India alone -
are going to be decided, thanks to the regulations
they seek for movement of their goods and services
across international boundaries.
But the
jargon is unavoidable, Mehta said. Each discipline
demands expertise and deals with subjects that are
inherently complex, even esoteric, and cannot be
simplified beyond a point." He noted that a
word such as necessity" may draw its etymological
roots from words such as "necessary" or "use" but
in the context of the WTO, the same word has
definite legal implications and its meaning has to
be drawn from the realms of jurisprudence.
"Jargon is inevitable," said economist
Bibek Debroy, who has authored and edited eight
books on WTO-related subjects since 1992. "But
there would be no contradiction if one
simultaneously argues that there is a strong case
for simplifying trade-related issues for a wider
audience."
Take the noun "non-paper",
which sounds like an oxymoron (a word or phrase
that is apparently incongruous or contradictory),
but is often used as a diplomatic technique.
In the WTO, when a country presents a
non-paper it means its government has made a
certain submission during negotiations or
discussions to which it is not bound. In other
words, a so-called non-paper contains a specific
viewpoint of a government at a particular juncture
that could change subsequently.
Biswajit
Dhar, professor at the Center for WTO Studies at
the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade in New
Delhi, is of the view that excessive use of jargon
at the WTO often mystifies the real issues and
concerns of large numbers of people.
"Developed countries make attempts to have
their way in trade negotiations by using words and
phrases that cannot be easily comprehended by
representatives of less-developed countries," Dhar
said.
He pointed out that many of the 148
member countries of the WTO do not have the
resources and experts to study and understand the
complex factors that determine the direction and
flow of world trade. Therefore, they cannot
participate in negotiations as equals.
For
example, developed countries have succeeded in
imposing stringent intellectual property rights on
pharmaceutical products and food safety standards
on items exported by developing countries, Dhar
said, adding that this effectively deprives these
countries of easy access to the markets of wealthy
nations.
Mehta is of the view that it is
not easy to simplify the nitty-gritty of trade
rules without making them overly simplistic. "Four
years ago, we translated a book on GATT [General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the predecessor to
the WTO] from English to Hindi and had found the
going extremely difficult."
Even the title
of the CUTS publication "Unpacking the GATT" had
to be translated to "GATT ke rahasya",
which literally means "Mysteries of the GATT".
Debroy thinks the Indian government is
doing much more than it did in the past to make
its position on WTO issues public by providing
more information on its websites.
As
executive head of a powerful Chamber of Commerce
in New Delhi, he said industry associations needed
to go beyond large cities and reach out to people
in small towns, adding that the business media in
India often did not explain issues - for example,
what the "Swiss formula" on farm subsidies
implied.
Civil society organizations are
perhaps best placed to explain the implications of
WTO regulations to ordinary people, Debroy feels.
He added a caveat that NGOs should differentiate
between facts and opinion, news and views - which,
in his opinion, they sometimes do not.
All
stakeholders must consciously start addressing the
deficit in communications as far as the WTO is
concerned, Dhar said. "Lack of clarity on
trade-related issues leads to a lot of
misunderstanding and even the spread of
falsehoods."
The WTO is often unfairly
portrayed as the villain or is held responsible
for all kinds of ills of developing countries,
including the fact thousands of farmers have
committed suicide in the southern Indian state of
Andhra Pradesh - a state that has taken heartily
to globalization - because of their inability to
repay loans.
"Even if some of us are of
the view that the WTO system has so far tended to
benefit the developed world rather than developing
countries, my opinion would be a bit more
nuanced," Dhar said.
The Geneva-based
international body still has the potential to
uphold the interests of developing countries and
play an important balancing role in rapidly
expanding global trade, he said.
But if it
is serious about that role, it could start
ensuring that the representatives of
less-developed countries are suitably empowered to
negotiate with officials of developed countries
who are better acquainted with the intricacies of
WTO negotiations - as well as the jargon deployed
by them, Dhar said.
