India at WTO: Can't weaponise transparency to justify trade retaliation or challenge legitimate domestic policies

At the 14th Ministerial Conference (MC-14) of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), India has cautioned against "weaponising transparency to justify trade retaliation or challenge legitimate domestic policies." Emphasising that consensus-based decision-making is the bedrock of the WTO’s legitimacy, India's Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said that "it is important for the WTO not to ignore the sovereign right of each member to not bind itself to rules which they do not agree to."

While underlining the importance of rebuilding trust for overcoming challenges in reaching decisions through consensus, India stressed on the importance of the WTO to undertake a careful stock-take of the current impasse and its underlying causes, while ensuring discussions remain transparent, inclusive, and Member-driven. India has highlighted that an integrated multilateral trading system can't thrive alongside fragmentation within its own institutional framework.

The statement comes amidst use of tariffs as trade retaliatory measures across the world. On the ‘Level playing field issues’, the Minister emphasised that discussions must consider the asymmetries from the Uruguay Round. India's submission focused on the need for long pending issues like food security, Public stockholding, and SSM on Cotton to be prioritised while taking up new issues to address the structural asymmetries. Highlighting the continued dysfunction of the dispute settlement system, India emphasised that without effective adjudication, rules lose their enforceability, thereby disproportionately disadvantaging smaller economies.

The Minister Piyush Goyal called for meaningful and sustained capacity-building support to ensure that all WTO members can meet their obligations fairly and effectively while stressing on the importance of a fair opportunity to build productive capacity, create employment, and participate meaningfully in global trade. On the sidelines of the MC14 meetings, Goyal held bilateral meetings with his counterparts from the US, China, Korea, Switzerland, New Zealand, Canada, Morocco, Oman, Jamaica, Barbados, Cameroon, the UK, Mozambique, Nigeria and Brazil.

Speaking at Ministerial Plenary Session on WTO Reform Transparency, Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal extended India’s support for a time-bound restart of reform efforts with milestones, based on a more robust evidentiary analysis and through engagement with submissions and Ministerial Decisions. India unequivocally called for avoiding cherry-picking of issues and proliferating preconceived and prejudged positions, while highlighting the need to give greater importance to the role of WTO Committees. He added, that through their lived and learned experiences, these Committees can contribute to an exhaustive stocktake through a bottom-up approach. While cautioning against plurilaterals fragmenting the multilateral trading system, Agrawal called for the consensus process to be premised on the principles of openness, transparency, inclusivity, participative and member driven.

In a meeting with WTO Reform Minister-Facilitators Norway’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Espen Barth Eide and UK Minister of State for Trade Policy Chris Bryant, Goyal reiterated India’s full support for a reformed, relevant, and effective WTO. He emphasised on the need to uphold the organisation’s foundational principles, particularly consensus-based decision-making, Most Favoured Nation (MFN) rule-based trade, and Special & Differential Treatment (S&DT), which he termed as essential to ensuring equity and balance in global trade.