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JOB/TNC/94  
 
15 July 2021 
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Trade Negotiations Committee    
 
VIRTUAL FORMAL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS COMMITTEE MEETING                                                    
AT MINISTERIAL LEVEL ON FISHERIES SUBSIDIES  
THURSDAY , 15 JULY 2021 
Opening Statement  by Dr. Ngozi Okonjo -Iweala                                                                                       
WTO Director -General and Chairperson of the Trade Negotiations Committee  
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1.1.  Excellencies, it is my distinct honour and pleasure to say how wonderful it is to be with you 
today. I n 2001, Ministers decided to clarify and improve WTO disciplines on fisheries subsidies, 
taking into account the importance of this sector to developing and least developed countries. 
Leaders and Ministers have elaborated and reaffirmed this mandate, from Hong Kong in 2005 to 
Buenos Aires in 2017, making it clear that sustainability was the raison d'être of these negotiations. 
They made a fisheries subsidies agreement part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and set 
a 2020 deadline for reaching one.  
1.2.  But 20 years into these talks, we are yet to conclude an agreement. Unsustainable fishing 
practices continue to take a toll on our oceans, encouraged by the government financial support we 
are seeking to discipline. Excellencies, the time for action is long overdue. In 1970, 10% of global 
fish stocks were overfished, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. This had risen 
to 27% in 2000, the year before these negotiations were launched. By 2017, 34% of global fish 
stocks were overfished, with mo st of the rest fully exploited.  
1.3.  Allowing this trend to continue threatens food security and livelihoods in coastal communities, 
together with the marine sustainability on which both depend. With a major UN Biodiversity 
Conference only months away, all eye s will be on trade ministers and the WTO to see whether we 
can truly contribute to the sustainability of our oceans and our fish stocks, a global commons 
problem. Your actions today can help place us on a trajectory towards a better future.  
1.4.  While textual p roposals have evolved over the years, a core problem remains the same. Instead 
of converging on effective disciplines for all, negotiators have devoted time and ingenuity to finding 
ways to constrain others' support but not their own. This is what trade ne gotiators are trained to do 
– and Ministers, I congratulate you on the skills of your negotiating teams. But it is not get ting us 
the outcome we need for our oceans.  
1.5.  There are many fundamental concerns at stake in these negotiations, particularly with rega rd 
to the livelihoods of the poorest and most vulnerable fisherwomen and men. This is why, since I 
took office in March, I have been reaching out to Heads of State, to you, Ministers, and to Permanent 
Representatives to try and find a pathway to finishing these negotiations. In all of these efforts, I 
have been working closely with the Chair of the Negotiating Group on Rules – Ambassador Wills  to 
whom we owe a debt of gratitude for his diligence and persistence.  I am also grateful to the 
Secretariat team fo r their tireless efforts to support these negotiations  as well as to all the Permanent 
Representatives and your negotiators in Geneva for their hard work.  
1.6.  Excellencies, I believe that we are all genuinely committed, but a shift of mindset is necessary 
for us to bridge the final gaps that continue to separate Members.  JOB/TNC/94  
 
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  1.7.  I convened this meeting because we need your collective political guidance to propel the 
negotiations to the final stage, so that we can deliver an agreement soon, hopefully well before you 
come together again for our 12th WTO Ministerial Conference at the end of November. When I say 
we should deliver an agreement soon, I mean an agreement with quality. And I am optimistic that 
with your help today, we can get there.  
1.8.  My optimism springs from two sources.  
1.9.  First, Members all agree on the severity of the problem concerning the depletion of fisheries 
resources, and recognise that solving it is a shared responsibility for all of us.  
1.10.  When negotiating, we should regularly r emind ourselves that we are working together to fulfil 
a common objective for the health of our planet  and the livelihoods of our people . This is our purpose 
as enshrined in the Marrakesh Agreement.  We have a chance to effect positive change for the lives 
of millions of people across the world. We can put SDG target 14.6 back on track at a time when the 
pandemic has set back development progress on so many fronts.  
1.11.  Second, I hear from many Members that text -based negotiations are what you want, and we 
now h ave a draft text that could serve as a basis for end -stage negotiations. Shifting to full text -
based negotiations requires a text to serve as the platform for forging the final compromises.  
1.12.  I thank you and your negotiators for your collective work in devel oping this text which is a 
product of your engagement over the past year. The countless meetings on the successive drafts 
convened by Ambassador Wills, assisted by the Secretariat team, have all been aimed at listening 
to your priorities and concerns with a view to progressively developing a text that all Members could 
take as a basis for finalizing a deal.   
1.13.  Excellencies, we must not underestimate the significance of having – for the first time in 20 
years – a full text on fisheries subsidies, built up fro m Members' proposals. The current text is not 
perfect – as is inevitable for anything based on the views of 164 Members with different perspectives.  
But it is an important step forward. It underscores the enormous progress you have made together 
over the past year, despite the challenges posed by the pandemic .  
1.14.  Let me emphasize that taking this text as the basis for subsequent work does not mean that 
it reflects full agreement, or that nothing else could be added or subtracted. That is what the text -
based negotiations are for.  
1.15.  Furthermore, while having a text that can serve as the basis for subsequent work is necessary, 
it is not sufficient. We need the flexibility and dedication of your negotiators to take the remaining 
steps towards convergence. Your pres ence today, including your responses to the two questions, 
will provide the critical political guidance needed for them to find common ground.  
1.16.  Excellencies, the success or otherwise of these negotiations is in your hands. The positions 
you take today could  set the stage for Members to reach a meaningful  conclusion, focusing on our 
shared sustainability objectives and the livelihoods of poor fisherwomen and men, especially those 
engaged in artisanal fishing. You can send a powerful signal – one way or the ot her – about the 
WTO's credibility as a multilateral negotiating forum. These fisheries subsidies negotiations have 
become a litmus test of WTO Members' ability to deliver meaningful multilateral agreements.  
1.17.  Let me conclude by noting that your Ministerial colleagues are also working hard to respond 
to the challenges of our time. Health Ministers are working towards a pandemic preparedness treaty.  
Finance Ministers are putting in place a charter for financing pandemic preparedness, so that we 
make the multi -billion -dollar investments that will give us a better chance to prevent or contain 
multi-trillion -dollar crises. Environment Ministers are developing a framework to cut the rate of 
biodiversity loss.  
1.18.  The trading system also has major contributions to make  on multiple fronts, helping to find 
solutions to the pandemic but also to this sustainability and livelihood challenge of the global 
commons. Success on fisheries subsidies would demonstrate to the world that the WTO can deliver 
new multilateral agreement s. It would enhance our prospects for success in other areas. This is the 
collective choice facing you today, Ministers: to support a WTO that delivers results or to continue JOB/TNC/94  
 
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  with a WTO of division and deadlock. I know we all want the former: a WTO of resu lts. A WTO that 
delivers tangible improvements to the lives of the people we are here to serve.  
1.19.  With these words, I would like to thank all of you for the support and commitment you have 
shown by taking time to participate in this meeting – at very inconve nient times of day and night 
for many of you. We do not take this lightly.  
1.20.  I look forward to hearing about your contributions to advancing our collective cause.  
 
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  ANNEX  
 
REPORT BY AMBASSADOR SANTIAGO WILLS (COLOMBIA),  
CHAIR OF THE NEGOTI ATING GROUP ON RULES  
 
1. Thank you , Director -General , and thank you Excellencies for joining us today.  
 
2. First, I would like to echo Dr Ngozi in recognizing and thanking the hard work of your Heads 
of Delegation and their delegates over the past few years. It is a privilege for me to serve as the 
Chair of the Negotiating Group on Rules, facilitating your dele gations' work on the fisheries subsidies  
negotiations, and it’s my honour to address all of you today. Their commitment to the negotiations 
is much appreciated and I am very grateful to them for their flexibility and willingness to meet 
frequently and some times at short notice. I would also like to sincerely thank the DG, Dr. Ngozi, for 
her commitment on this process; her full engagement has been key in moving these negotiations 
forward and in making the necessary progress that today allows to meet with you .  
 
3. The draft text that I introduced to the Negotiating Group on 30 June, which is the basis of the 
questions you will discuss, is the reflection of this work. That is, the collective work of all WTO 
Members. And I would like to emphasise that it remains a dra ft text – its purpose is to be the subject 
of more work.  
 
4. This text is the latest step in a process that began 18 months ago, when I took up the Chair 
of the Negotiating Group. Many Members at that time suggested that we start a process of "text -
based" ne gotiations. When I inquired, however, I found that there was no single text that could be 
used as a basis. Thus, one year ago, I compiled a first draft consolidated document, from the many 
documents that were then before Members, including proposals and fa cilitator reports.  
 
5. Helpfully, those inputs all reflected three main substantive pillars derived from the mandate, 
on subsidies contributing to Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated fishing, subsidies to fishing on 
overfished stocks, and subsidies contribut ing to overcapacity and overfishing, as well as provisions 
on special and differential treatment, which  is also a core element of the negotiating mandate. Along 
with this, the inputs addressed notifications and transparency, as well as other cross -cutting issues 
such as institutional arrangements and dispute settlement. The first consolidated draft document, 
although incomplete and very much a compilation, marked an important step in the negotiations, as 
Members began to engage on the basis of that single d ocument.  
 
6. Since then, there have been successive iterations of the draft document, on which delegations 
have continued to engage and contribute. Through this work, the evolving text was gradually filled 
out, and some clarity emerged on where there was a c ertain convergence, as well as on where views 
were divided and different options were maintained. The changes introduced were based on written 
and oral interventions by Members, and always were aimed at helping Members to identify the 
potential for converg ence. It is particularly noteworthy, and a tribute to Members, that all of this 
progress was made while the COVID -19 pandemic brought major disruptions to how we engage.  
 
7. The current draft, in document TN/RL/W/276/Rev.1 , is the most recent product of this ongoing 
process of building toward a platform for text -based negotiations. The work has now distilled the 
issues to the point where technically we are ready to engage in that new mode. My hope is that the 
text can serve as a tool on which we can now work a nd that will help us to reach a final result that 
all Members can accept. We thus need Ministerial guidance to set us on this path.  
 
8. Concerning the questions that the Director General and I put to you:  on the first question, we 
are asking you to agree to finish the negotiations as soon as possible ahead of MC12, by engaging 
on the current text. This in no way means that you would be conceding your national positions, it 
would just mean using the text as the common basis on which you would pursue those posi tions to 
seek the amendments, additions and deletions that you believe are needed. And it would depend on 
fully authorizing your Heads of Delegation, that is, providing them with all of the instructions needed 
to make the necessary compromises on the spot.   
 
9. The second question reflects that an overarching and fundamental concern of developing and 
Least Developed Country Members in these negotiations is the food security and livelihood of 
artisanal fishers.  An affirmative answer to this question would be w ithout prejudice to other issues JOB/TNC/94  
 
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  related to special and differential treatment, including in any other contexts, and would make clear 
that this concern is a common denominator among Members.  
 
10. There are many other questions that Dr Ngozi and I could have r aised to you but these two 
appeared to us to be ones where your guidance would be particularly helpful.  
 
11. I would like to conclude by recalling the broader context of these negotiations, as already 
noted by Dr. Ngozi. This process started in 2001, and sinc e then many deadlines have been missed, 
including the 2020 deadline contained in SDG Target 14.6, which WTO Ministers reiterated in your 
own Decision  at MC11. These negotiations are about the sustainability of precious shared resources 
on which millions of  people, including many poor people, depend. This is not the usual WTO business 
of commercial relations. The negotiations were urgent when they began 20 years ago, and have only 
become more so as each year has gone by and fish stocks have continued their a larming decline. 
So, a result is long overdue, and the world is watching.  
 
12. As you know, Leaders will meet in September to review progress on the Sustainable 
Development Goals. Now is an opportunity for WTO Ministers to show your individual and collective 
commitment to finally delivering on the mandate.  
 
13. Thank you , Excellencies , for joining us today and thank you Dr Ngozi for the opportunity to 
make this statement.  
 
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