WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONWT/GC(00)/ST/1
10 February 2000
(00-0500)
General Council
7 and 8 February 2000Original:  English
FAREWELL STATEMENT BY H.E. MR. ALI MCHUMO
CHAIRMAN OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL
As this is the last meeting of the General Council that I will have the honour to chair, let me
use this occasion first of all to thank al the Members of the WTO represented in the General Council
for giving me the opportunity and honour to serve as Chairman of the General Council for the year
1999.  I thank all of you not only for electing me to the Chair, but for your continued help and support
throughout the difficult terrain we have travelled together in the past year.  My thanks also go to all
colleagues who served with me as chairpersons of the various bodies in the WTO for their outstanding
contributions to the multilateral trading system.  Needless to say it would be impossible for me to
discharge my functions as Chairman of the General Council without the dedicated support of the
Secretariat, and I therefore wish to express my sincere gratitude to all members of the Secretariat and
especially those with whom I worked more directly and closely.  In this regard I want first to sincerely
thank Mr. David Hartridge who, as Director in Charge in the absence of a Director-General, providedexemplary leadership to the Secretariat during the in terregnum and was particularly helpful to me for
his sincerity, objectivity, dedication and loyalty to the institution of Chairman of the General Council
during the greater part of my Chairmanship when we had to run the WTO without a Director-General
and indeed when we had to devote all our energies to search for a new Director-General.  I want also
to thank Mr. Barthel-Rosa for his expertise and energy in ensuring that the Chairman says and does
the right thing in managing the General Council and I also thank Mr. Evan Rogerson for his
invaluable support during the preparatory process for the Seattle Ministerial Conference and beyond.My gratitude to the Secretariat would not be complete without thanking the former Director-General,
Mr. Renato Ruggiero who was responsible for establishing such an efficient Secretariat and with
whom I had the most cordial relationship as Chairman  of the General Council.  I also wish to pay
special tribute to our new Director-General, Mike  Moore who although he has been on the job for
only the last few months of my Chairmanship, he has tremendously energised the Secretariat and hasbeen such a good friend and a most agreeable person to work with.  As I vacate the Chair, I urge him
to continue the good work he has so ably started and I want to wish him all the best in the challenging
tasks ahead of him.
I have been honoured to be Chairman of the General Council following eminent colleagues
whose example in performance and conduct in offi ce have been very inspiring.  Although I have
known all the past four WTO General Council Chairmen, two were particularly helpful to me: my
immediate predecessor Ambassador John Weekes of  Canada and Ambassador William Rossier of
Switzerland.  I want to sincerely thank Ambassador  Weekes who provided me with useful advice
upon receiving the gavel from him and for all the time he was with us before assuming otherresponsibilities outside the WTO.  Ambassador William Rossier deserves special gratitude, for, being
the only past Chairman around, he has remained a ready reservoir of wisdom and institutional
memory for the office of Chairman of General Council, and more specifically Ambassador Rossier
has been particularly helpful to me during the earlier part of my Chairmanship when we were
searching for a new Director-General.  I want on this occasion to publicly repeat my thanks to you
William for your friendship, dedication to duty and to the multilateral trading system and for your
ever readiness to provide useful advice and support whenever I needed it.WT/GC(00)/ST/1
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The year 1999 was historic not only because it was the end of a millennium and the dawn of
another, but historic for the WTO because of the unusual coincidence of major tasks that had to be
addressed in the same year – the appointment of a new Director-General and preparation for the
launching of new negotiations for an improved multilateral trading system.  These two tasks and other
related matters preoccupied us most during my term as Chairman and indeed the coincidence of thesetasks could characterize my Chairmanship as one of the most, if not the most, difficult in the history
of our organisation.  To me being Chairman of th e General Council at this time has provided me with
the most instructive learning experience on a broad range of matters, an experience which I would not
be able to get anywhere, even in the best Universities around the globe.  The long drawn out contest
for a Director-General has happily resulted in get ting two excellent personalities who will occupy the
post one after another and in this way the General Council which I chaired has had the unusual
privilege of influencing the leadership of the Secretariat for another six years!!  The preparations forthe Third Ministerial Conference were equally arduous and the fact that we did not agree on a draft
Ministerial Declaration here in Geneva contributing significantly to the failure to agree at Seattle
underscores the crucial role that the General Council has in ensuring the success of any Ministerial
Conference.
From the process of appointing a new Director-General and from the experience of preparing
for the Third Ministerial Conference and what subsequently happened at Seattle, important lessons
can be drawn out and these lessons have to constitute an important agenda on the future of our
Organisation and how it transacts its functions and business.  Indeed we have already concluded that
the system of appointing the Director-General is  archaic and unsatisfactory and that a new method
must be instituted by September 2000.  This is an important matter and I believe that my successor
will lead us through the necessary consultations to a more acceptable and transparent system of
appointing a Director-General as well as a more balanced system of appointing Deputy Directors-
General.  On the broader concern of how best to manage the world trading system in the light of the
present configuration of its membership reflecting various levels of development and a widegeographical variation, Seattle has provided a wake up call for all of us to reflect and re-examine how
we need to evolve a more inclusive and participatory system of decision making even when consensus
remains the basic principle of decision making.  Indeed, the institutional reforms that need to be made
to the multilateral trading system is one of th e major concerns that will be addressed in the
consultations that we have agreed to undertake in the immediate future.
Without prejudging the details of those consultations aimed at improving the management
and operation of the world trading system, let me take the liberty to highlight what I consider to be
among the most crucial elements to be taken into account.  Firstly, in the forthcoming consultations
we need to reflect more carefully how to ensure  that the principle of consensus which remains non-
negotiable, continues to be an asset rather than a liability in ensuring efficient and fair decision
making.  It has to be recognized that while consensus is the best device to ensure the balance ofinterests of all members since it is a guarantee against the so-called “tyranny of the majority” and “the
bullying by the powerful”, we need to devise rules or provide creative interpretation of the existing
rules so that, the WTO does not suffer from the image of being an organisation incapable of making
decisions.  I am far from suggesting that we should discard the principle of consensus in decision
making since, like democracy, consensus is the least unsatisfactory method of ensuring balancedinterests of all.  What I am suggesting is that while we uphold the principle of consensus in decision
making, let us think of how we can strike a balance between fairness and efficiency in our decision
making so that consensus is not an excuse for indecisiveness or perpetuation of the vested interests of
the few.
Secondly, and related to the first concern raised above, we need to address the perennial
problem of how to ensure in the decision making process of the WTO the right balance between
transparency, democracy, inclusiveness and representativity among the entire membership of the
organisation on the one hand and efficiency in reaching an agreement on the other.  Indeed thisWT/GC(00)/ST/1
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question came up very frequently as we were preparing for Seattle and it came out again more
forcefully at the end of the Seattle Ministerial Conference.  Clearly, as confirmed by the concluding
remarks of the Chairperson of the Seattle Ministerial Conference, the traditional “green rooms” seem
to be unsatisfactory, and the question now is what version of representativity is acceptable, whether a
system of “core group – open ended consultations” is feasible or perhaps a blend of such open endedconsultations and an improved and a “representative green room” could do the trick.  There is no easy
answer to this problem but certainly it is an issue that needs our immediate attention if we are to
restore the credibility to our Organisation.
Thirdly, whatever institutional reforms are made in the WTO, the basic premise of the
Organisation as a member-driven organisation must be preserved and in practical terms the primacy
of the General Council as a body representing all members must be recognised vis-à-vis theSecretariat which is supposed to service the Membership, and by the same token the institutional role
the Chairman of the General Council must be respected without compromising or minimising the role
of the Director-General as head of the Secretariat.
Let me make my final observation, and this is on the notion of making developing countries
and especially LDCs and Africa feel a true sense of belonging to the World Trade Organisation and
here I think I can be excused if I now speak as an African coming from a least developed country.  On
this I can only repeat what I said on 16 February 1999 when I was assuming the Chairmanship, and
this is what I said, if I may quote myself:
“Indeed, by this act (i.e. of electing me as Chairman of the General Council) you are sending
the correct signals to the international tradin g community and to those interested in the
multilateral trading system that this Organisation, the World Trade Organisation, belongs to
all of us, the largest and the smallest Members, the most developed countries and the least
developed countries ……  Certainly, the equality of ownership of the WTO must of necessitybe manifested in the equality of participation in the affairs of the Organization, including
taking up leadership positions in its various bodies.  Of course what remains yet to be
achieved is the more meaningful equality and inclusiveness whereby all countries will equally
benefit from the multilateral trading system and ……. that must remain our main objective as
we strengthen and perfect the multilateral trading system as we enter the next millennium we
are about to start”.
I said this a year ago before the new millennium had started and this concern I expressed then,
remains as valid today as it was twelve months ago.  What this means is that the sense of belonging
and involvement that is necessary to stem the tide of further marginalization of Africa and LDCs can
only be meaningful and genuine if the developed c ountries put their resources where their mouths are,
as they are clearly committed to do, and if this involvement for the LDCs and Africa can go beyondmere tokenism.  Among other things, this requires a fundamental cultural and perceptive change in the
mindset of all concerned including members of the Secretariat so that a more positive and sympathetic
orientation towards LDCs and Africa can be engendered.  It is for this reason that it is important that
technical assistance be given more generously and the Special and differential treatment provisions in
favour of developing and least developed countries in the Uruguay Round Agreements be fullyoperationalized in the letter and spirit, and that is why it is important also that the decisions of the
High Level Meeting on the Integrated Framework for LDCs be implemented.  The efforts to
transform the Secretariat so that it reflects  the composition of the WTO’s membership is
commendable and Director-General Mike Moore is to be congratulated and commended for
appointing the first Deputy Director-General from Africa and from an LDC, but we expect this
appointment to be the beginning of a more serious effort to make the contribution and role of Africa
and LDCs in the WTO to be more meaningful and again to go beyond mere tokenism.  I am glad to
note that during my Chairmanship, Members have clearly shown their serious commitment toWT/GC(00)/ST/1
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ensuring that the WTO truly belongs to us all, LDCs and Africa included and I expect that spirit and
commitment to continue in future in greater earnest.
Finally, let me end as I began, by thanking you all once again for giving me the opportunity to
serve you and serve our Organisation for the past one year and thank you for your support throughoutthe difficult year.  It was an honour for me personally, an honour for my country Tanzania and an
honour for my Continent.  I can certainly look back  with pride what we, through the General Council,
have been able to achieve together, such as the accession to the WTO of three more countries
(Estonia, Georgia and Jordan) and the commencement of negotiations for accession of three new
applicants, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bhutan and Lebanon; overseeing the implementation of the
Work Programme on Electronic Commerce, and steps towards the promotion of the institutional
image of the WTO these are among the accomplishments of the past year.  At the same time, I regretthat there is a lot of work that we were not able to finish and which I trust my successor will carry
forward to completion.  One such unfinished work is the conclusion on the long standing question
regarding observer status for international organisations.  I do hope that this issue will be finalised as
soon as possible so that it can enhance efforts to provide more transparency to our Organisation.  Of
course the biggest disappointment is that we were not able to conclude the Third MinisterialConference at Seattle and so we were unable to launch the expected multilateral trade negotiations at
the beginning of this Millennium and during my Chairmanship as we had expected.  However, I do
leave the Chair with the optimism that my successor will  be able to lead us to the day we shall see the
launching of the new trade negotiations which would happen sooner than later.  Before leaving the
podium therefore, let me congratulate the new Chairman, Ambassador Kåre Bryn whom we shallelect in a few moments to chair the General Council and let me also congratulate all other new
Chairpersons who will be elected to chair the various bodies.  I am particularly gratified that I shall be
passing over the gravel to Ambassador Bryn of No rway, a person who has distinguished himself in his
previous diplomatic career and in his contribution to the work of our organisation and coming from a
country which is well known in its commitment to assist developing and especially least developedcountries in the WTO.  Taking account of the enormity and complexity of the work that lies ahead,
there can be no better person to guide us through than Ambassador Bryn who enjoys the undivided
support of the entire Membership of this Organisation, and who in his short tenure as Chairman of the
DSB has impressed us all with his expertise, dedication and sense of fairness and balance.  I wish to
pledge my support to you Ambasador Bryn for the success of your tenure in office and I appeal to all
Members to give Ambassador Bryn the support he deserves to carry out the mandate we are entrusting
on him for this coming year at the beginning of a new millennium.
I thank you.
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