. /.   WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  WT/GC/W/611 
16 October 2009 
 (09-5096) 
General Council 
20-21 October 2009 Original:   English 
 
 
 
THE WTO ACCESSION PROCESS – THE NEED FOR DIALOGUE 
 
Communication from the Informal Group of Developing Countries  
 
 
 The following communication, dated 15 October 2009, is being circulated at the request of the Delegation of Gabon on behalf of the Informal Group of Developing Countries. 
 
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1. Background 
1. Since the establishment of the WTO 25 accessi ons under Article XII of the Marrakesh 
Agreement have been concluded.  Currently, 29 countries/separate customs territories are in the 
process of negotiating their terms of accession to the WTO, the vast majority of them are developing 
countries.  There is also one request for accession which has been pending since 2001.   
2. Accessions are very important for the WTO as an institution and for the multilateral trading 
system that it oversees.  Accessions allow the WTO to fulfill its goal of having universality of 
membership and bringing the vast majority of global commerce under its multilateral agreements.  
Accessions strengthen the rules-based multilateral tr ade system as compliance with those rules is 
expected from the date of membership. 
3. From the perspective of the acceding countri es WTO membership provides them with an 
excellent instrument for domestic policy, legal and institutional reforms.  Acceding to the WTO 
contributes to cement economic reforms which ma y come under attack from domestic protectionist 
interests.  However for these reforms to be truly lasting, and beneficial to the population of the 
country, accession to the WTO must be a welfare enhanc ing process.  This is why it is important that 
during accession negotiations the principles of special  and differential treatment and non-reciprocity 
from developed countries in favour of acceding de veloping countries and LDCs be fully complied 
with. 
4.  The accession process has worked for Members, as they have been successfully integrated 
into the global trade and economic mainstream afte r accession to the WTO.  From the perspective of 
WTO Members the Multilateral Trading System has contributed to opening of new markets and to 
enforcing international rules and obligations by the governments of newly acceded members. 
5. Nevertheless, it has to be said that the process entails great efforts on the part of the acceding 
developing countries, and the necessary reforms are not  always easy to implement.  Problems emerge 
too, when future members are faced with very ambitious requests and expectations by existing 
Members. There are many other reasons ranging from political instability to the capacity of the 
negotiating team which do affect the pace and the content of the WTO accession negotiations.   WT/GC/W/611 
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  2. Rationale 
6. Given the current dynamics of negotiations to jo in the WTO, Members enjoy a much stronger 
negotiating position than the acceding developing count ries.  The lack of clea r rules on the accession 
process, compounded by the stronger position of Me mbers, may lead to Acceding countries being 
faced with demands that go beyond their level of deve lopment, and of current WTO rules.  It is also 
worrying that in many cases the obstacles and delays  that are encountered by some developing 
countries in their efforts to join the WTO are not te chnical in nature but are rather based on political 
considerations and issues that are not related to trade or economic policy.  
7. The type of problems outlined above, which have been repeatedly brought to the attention of 
the General Council by our Group, raise serious syst emic questions.  We believe that the time has 
come to start a dialogue on those issues as they may affect negatively the development of future 
developing country members.  This dialogue seems  to be necessary as we need to provide more 
guaranties that WTO accession will be used as an e ffective tool to initiate reforms in developing 
economies around the world and integrate them succes sfully in the trade mainstream in a manner 
which would be conducive with  their development goals. 
8. Acceding developing countries have very few opportunities to make their views on the 
accession process known to Members.  Therefore, it would seem important to provide the opportunity 
to acceding developing countries to voice their comments on the process they are going through. 
9. It is commendable that the issue of accession ne gotiations has received more attention in the 
recent past and we acknowledge the efforts being ma de by the Chairman of the General Council, the 
Director-General and the Secretariat to improve the general situation of the accessions mechanism, 
but more remains to be done.  Therefore, we be lieve it is beneficial to improve the existing 
institutional mechanisms where acceding developi ng countries would be able to express their 
concerns with the process.  
3. Proposal 
10. The Informal Group of Developing Countries believes that the following proposal could lay 
the groundwork to stimulate a dialogue to understa nd better the problems of the acceding processes 
and their implications on future members: 
• Improve the existing institutional mechanisms with the objective of providing the opportunity 
to acceding developing countries to make their views on the accession process known to 
Members.  Progress reports shall be pe riodically sent to the General Council. 
4. Conclusion 
11. We believe that future partners within the or ganization need to have the chance to talk and 
exchange experiences and opinions inside as well as outside of the negotiating atmosphere of their 
respective Working Party meetings.  
12. Given that the approaching Ministerial Conferen ce will be dealing with systemic issues we 
believe that the accession process with numerous identified systemic concerns needs to be on the agenda of the conference. In that context, a firs t exchange of ideas with the acceding countries would 
seem important in providing a necessary input for more  substantive discussions at the conference.  As 
the time is of the essence here, we would welcome a quick and positive consideration of this proposal.  
 
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