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Yves right here. Significantly on the licensing of Covid vaccines, there had been an enormous push, even from well being consultants in rich nations, to liberalize WTO mental property guidelines to permit for extra widespread manufacture at cheaper costs. In fact that and different enlightened initiatives got here to naught.
By Deborah James, Director of Worldwide Applications , Middle for Financial and Coverage Analysis. Initially revealed on the Institute of New Financial Pondering web site
ast week’s WTO 12thMinisterial Convention (MC12) in Geneva concluded with pro-corporate, anti-worker, and anti-development outcomes on all main problems with entry to medicines, agriculture, digital commerce, and the way forward for the WTO itself. The spin of “unprecedented outcomes” of MC12 is a cynical ploy to paper over main variations to bolster the establishment’s flailing status.
The agreements ought to herald a warning to all: wealthy nation governments professing new commitments to sustainable and worker-centered commerce are simply as more likely to push anti-development outcomes and beauty window-dressing with regards to defending Large Enterprise income above the general public curiosity. Their model of WTO “reform” will facilitate the additional deterioration of multilateralism and cement-in discredited pro-corporate guidelines on globalization.
MC12: Setting the Situation
Creating nations made a number of key calls for upfront of MC12: to place flexibility to handle the worldwide well being disaster forward of extreme safety of mental property rights for Large Pharma and take care of the continued meals safety disaster by adopting new flexibilities on dangerous agricultural guidelines. Most of their pursuits have been defensive, attempting to take care of issues in current WTO guidelines, as detailed in “Trying in direction of WTO MC12: What’s on the desk for growing nations and LDCs [Least Developed Countries]?”
Upfront of MC12, international union federationspublished a united assertion: the WTO Reform “ought to deal with inclusion: put employees’ pursuits first, carry company energy below democratic management, and ship on the event mandate agreed upon in Doha.” (It failed on all accounts.)
Main into MC12, the Our World Is Not for Sale (OWINFS) international community of civil society organizations (CSOs) held a press briefingto assist journalists perceive the actual points on agriculture and fish subsidies to entry to medicines, growth, and WTO reform that have been being glossed over within the WTO’s official statements.
On the opening day of MC12, CSOs obtained a impolite shock with the unprecedented act of being banned from the premisesduring a ministerial. Happily, that they had organized a press convention together with a dozen activists from across the worldto testify to the significance of the broad vary of points on the desk. The briefing garnered a number of the solely press protection for little-known points like WTO reformduring the ministerial assembly.
Civil society individuals in Geneva for the MC12 later held an indication on the Place des Nations. Some activists have been then harassed by the policefor holding banners or carrying t-shirts that referred to as for a real response to Covid-19 and motion to cease massive fishing fleets from decimating fish shares, even after they have been standing exterior of the 200-meter perimeter across the WTO.
Anticipating a tough week of talks and few potential advantages for employees, farmers, or the general public curiosity in any nation, activists with the worldwide Our World Is Not for Sale community staged a full of life “mic test” protestthe first day they have been allowed inside. Utilizing a “name and response” format they referred to as for constructive outcomes on growth, entry to medicines, agriculture, and fisheries, whereas denouncing the company agenda of continuous Large Pharma monopolies, faux WTO reform, and different points.
Waiver or Non-Waiver
Essentially the most devastating consequence of MC12 for the world is the failure of WTO members to take away obstacles created by the WTO to assist resolve the pandemic by adopting a complete waiver of mental property (IP) restrictions on vaccines, therapies, and assessments associated to Covid-19 throughout the WTO’s Commerce-Associated Features of Mental Property (TRIPS) settlement.
The WTO’s IP guidelines are the other of free commerce – they limit commerce by defending monopolies, eliminating competitors, and driving up costs. South Africa and India, together with 60 co-sponsors and supported by over 100 growing nations, proposed a waiver on these invented protections in order that nations within the international South can manufacture their very own vaccines, therapies, and assessments. Teams throughout growing and developed nations just like the Folks’s Vaccine Alliancehave mobilized an enormous marketing campaign on this challenge for practically two years.
The EU, Switzerland, and the UK labored diligently all through the Ministerial to incorporate much more restrictions and limitations within the settlement. They violently oppose any recognition that IP guidelines have posed any challenges throughout the pandemic, despite the fact that solely a fraction of individuals in poor nations have entry to Covid-19 vaccines, not to mention therapies or assessments.
Civil society organizations denounced the (in)motion of the EU, UK, US, and Switzerland for stalling any efficient motion within the WTO throughout the whole Covid-19 pandemic by staging a first-ever “die-in” within the WTO. One after the other, activists symbolically “died” as they defined how these 4 members prioritized patents over vaccines, resulting in tens of millions of deaths all over the world. CSOs in nations like South Africaand Indonesialobbied their governments closely to remain robust whereas these in nations just like the UK, Switzerland, Australia, the US, and throughout Europe pressured governments to place lives over revenue.
Different geopolitical elements sophisticated the problem. Negotiations have been prolonged into the night time so the U.S. and China might discover a touchdown zone on eligibility to make use of any IP flexibilities, because the US demanded clear language that excluded China.
What was agreed was not an actual waiver, because of EU, US, UK, and Swiss dedication to guard Large Pharma’s income. The settlement solely grants a restricted flexibility on one provision; excludes all types of IP besides patents; excludes therapies and assessments; and requires much more intrusive monitoring and reporting than the present guidelines (amongst different extreme restrictions), leading to a “TRIPS-plus” settlement fairly than an actual waiver. The ultimate textual content on this challenge even states that “growing nations with current capability to fabricate Covid-19 vaccines are inspired to make a binding dedication to not avail themselves of this settlement.” So, any nation with the capability to fabricate is meant to agree to not use the settlement?
The Medicines sans Frontières (MSF) headline greatest summarized the end result: “Lack of ability to agree an actual pandemic mental property Waiver at WTO is a devastating international failure for individuals the world over.” The settlement “doesn’t adequately waive mental rights on all important COVID-19 medical instruments, and it doesn’t apply to all nations. The measures outlined within the choice won’t handle pharmaceutical monopolies or guarantee reasonably priced entry to lifesaving medical instruments and can set a adverse precedent for future international well being crises and pandemics,” in keeping with MSF.
A second Covid-related declaration on the “WTO response to the Covid-19 pandemic and preparedness for future pandemics” was designed as a fig leaf for the utter failure of the WTO to take away its personal obstacles to resolving the pandemic and won’t save one human life from Covid-19.
As a substitute of addressing WTO constraints to the pandemic, the declaration presents a false narrative that present WTO guidelines supported fairly than hindered the response to the pandemic. It truly promotes additional liberalization as a “resolution” to pandemics and means that unilateral liberalization and rules needs to be locked at a standstill as a method to handle pandemics; luckily, the false options indicated don’t seem like enforceable.
That’s why already round 300 labor, well being, and different organizations have condemned the shortage of an actual waiver on the WTO, criticized these accountable, and urged governments to take motion exterior of the WTO, whether or not they promise to not endorse IP guidelines (in developed nations) or for all nations to work tougher to avoid wasting lives, together with by utilizing current flexibilities, circumventing guidelines or defying them when wanted. CSOs in South Africa have already put ahead a transparent path of how this may be applied on the nationwide stage.
Exclusionary Processes
The ultimate bundle of offers this week was solely attainable as a result of nearly all of WTO members have been excluded from the decision-making course of. Relatively than conduct the negotiations in keeping with the principles and procedures of the WTO, the Director-Normal (DG) convened unique “Inexperienced Rooms” by which sure delegations have been invited to barter, with the bulk excluded. In these inexperienced rooms, developed nations are current individually whereas the overwhelming majority of growing nations are solely current by way of group coordinators, such because the Africa-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP) group or the LDC group. This configuration leaves out nearly all of Latin American and Asian nations, and consigns practically 50 members to 1 voice, with just a few different growing nations within the room to face off to an often-unified entrance of wealthy nation obstinance. At some factors even complete teams have been excluded: the LDC coordinator was not within the negotiations on the Ministerial Consequence Declaration; India was excluded from a number of the inexperienced room talks on fisheries negotiations.
Civil society representatives on the ministerial additionally heard delegations repeatedly complain concerning the WTO Director Normal’s in depth bullying and intimidation ways. Within the case of at the least one African nation resisting on a selected challenge, the DG truly referred to as the president of his nation! In one other, the DG got here off the rostrum (the place she was not purported to be presiding) and verbally dressed down a delegate representing his nation’s place in entrance of the whole room. There have been many complaints about bullying at earlier WTO ministerialconferences, however the variety of complaints heard by CSOs from growing nations that the DG had harassed their delegation into conforming was completely with out precedent.
Civil society teams highlighted the exclusion challenge of their motion on the second day by creating a visible illustration of the Inexperienced Room with developed nations inside negotiating. These representing excluded growing nations chanted “Allow us to in! Allow us to in!” to which wealthy nations retorted “you aren’t invited,” repeated by safety guards.
The DG and different Chairs of negotiations orchestrating the ministerial used a number of different exclusion ways. Members obtained 4 of the texts that had been negotiated by small teams in “Inexperienced Rooms” solely in English, at 1:30 within the morning. After a number of postponements, the Heads of Delegations (HODs) assembly, with all members, was convened however postponed once more at 3:22 AM for an additional half hour. After many delays, by 4:59 AM messages have been despatched that every little thing had been agreed upon. Delegates obtained the opposite three texts (the TRIPS non-waiver, fisheries subsidies, and the e-commerce moratorium) solely hours later, after that they had been gaveled by way of by the Chair in entrance of ministers representing maybe half of the membership.
There are good causes to doubt the legality of those procedures below the WTO’s guidelines. The “exclusionary unrepresentative processes behind the celebrated MC12 ‘Package deal’needs to be taken up on the WTO by members. Sadly, the brand new DG is now celebrating her machinations as efficient deal-making. Evidently, if breaking the principles and procedures of the establishment is required for its enlargement, she is prepared and capable of tackle that position.
Fisheries Subsidies
WTO members have been mandated within the Sustainable Improvement Targets (SDGs) to agree to cut back fishing subsidies which have resulted in a collapse of fish shares worldwide. This mandate additionally consists of an affirmation that growing nations want flexibilities, referred to as particular and differential therapy within the WTO, to proceed fishing for sustenance and livelihoods.
Sadly, the draft settlement that Ministers thought of for the Ministerial was quick on each counts. The Pacific Community on Globalizationand TWNprovided in depth analysis on the adverse impacts of the potential fishing subsidies disciplines for small fisherfolk and growing nations. They revealed how the draft Ministerial textual content let the largest subsidizers accountable for the collapse in fish shares globally off the hook concerning subsidy reductions. On the identical time, the draft settlement would have jeopardized small-scale fishers’ entry to tiny subsidies which might be vital for his or her livelihoods, and hurt growing nations’ rights below worldwide regulation to develop this sector for sustenance and livelihoods.
Over 80 civil society teams wrote a letter“calling on Ministers to ensure that any consequence on fisheries subsidies negotiations targets those that have the best historic duty for overfishing and inventory depletion, excludes all small-scale fishers from any subsidy prohibitions, prevents the WTO from ruling on the validity of conservation and administration measures of members, and upholds the sovereign rights of nations below UNCLOS [the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea].”
Indonesian CSOs additionally wrote a letterto their authorities urging them “to not approve the present fisheries subsidy textual content as it’ll jeopardize the livelihoods and meals safety of fisherfolks and the fisheries sector as an entire.” The Indian Nationwide Fishworkers’ Forumsent the same letter calling on the federal government to reject the textual content on the desk.
The US had launched a provision on compelled labor within the fishing trade, centered on China. Employees in seafood processing on ships are a number of the most exploited on the planet, in keeping with the Worldwide Union of Foodworkers, which has lengthy advocated within the Worldwide Labor Group (ILO) for his or her safety in opposition to horrendous violations of their rights and lives.
Some growing nations don’t agree with the introduction of labor guidelines within the WTO, as developed nations usually use these as protectionist measures. On this case, it’s significantly putting that the US has not signed the ILO conference on compelled labor, due to the in depth use of compelled labor in prisons, which can also be a company subsidy. In the long run, the problem was dropped, seemingly for another trade-off.
Beneath what was agreed at MC12, there are new disciplines on subsidies for boats on the excessive seas in areas of widespread jurisdiction. However the last textual content is unbalanced general, and main areas of the proposed settlement have been put aside.
The basic flaw within the settlement is that enormous subsidizers, accountable for the collapse of shares, are allowed to keep up subsidies offered the fishing is throughout the waters of any nation’s jurisdiction. They’re additionally capable of subsidize fishing overfished shares offered they will display that there are “sustainable” measures in place. These nations with essentially the most duty for overfishing that’s inflicting the collapse in fish shares can be let “off the hook,” as they not solely have the monetary assets to proceed subsidizing but in addition have in depth monitoring and measurement capacities.
Most flexibilities for growing nations have been eliminated, as defined in “Particular and Differential Remedy takes a beating within the new Draft Fisheries Textual content submitted to Ministers for WTO MC12.” The provisions disciplining subsidies for Unlawful, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing lengthen the flexibleness for growing nations to 200 nautical miles (from the earlier proposal of an inadequate 12) however just for a paltry two years. That is far lower than wanted for growing nations to construct capability for in depth burdensome monitoring necessities, particularly when these subsidies don’t contribute to collapsed shares.
An odd new provision will preserve the talks going: WTO members should proceed to barter these features in direction of a complete settlement in 4 years, in any other case the partial settlement ceases to be in drive.
As PANG concluded in, “What does the WTO Fisheries Subsidies Settlement imply for sustainability and growth?“The settlement stays basically flawed and in favor of these nations with giant capability for subsidizing and reporting. Its failure to focus on these most traditionally accountable for overfishing is guaranteeing that the burdens of the settlement are being carried by these least accountable. The minimalist SDT solely affords a quick peace clause, which fails the mandate of the SDG. Lastly, the shortage of commitments on technical help and capability constructing represents a failure to make sure that growing nations and LDCs are capable of meet the burdens of this textual content, as an alternative, we are going to see assets being diverted from elsewhere. This textual content fails the mandate.”
Sustainability and fisherfolk advocates might want to ramp up their campaigning to enhance the end result within the coming negotiations.
Agriculture
Together with the TRIPS waiver, growing nations’ second key demand was to have the ability to make investments extra in their very own home manufacturing to advertise meals safety, for which they want flexibility from dangerous WTO guidelines which place handcuffs on their potential to subsidize meals manufacturing for the poor. Years in the past, a coalition of growing nations gained a conditional, short-term reprieve on public stockholding applications – and have been promised a everlasting resolution by this Ministerial. OWINFS members in India present additional particulars: Agriculture and meals safety negotiations textual content at WTO MC12: Implications for growing nations.
A unified push by round 80 growing nations upfront of the ministerial ought to have resulted in a constructive consequence for a everlasting resolution to permit them the liberty to interact in public stockholding practices, so these nations can improve manufacturing and feed their very own poor.
Once more, wealthy nations – who subsidize their farmers lots of of instances extra per farmer than growing nations subsidize – blocked this consequence. There isn’t any affirmation of the significance of resolving this mandated life or demise challenge within the consequence texts.
However the present meals worth disaster for the reason that Russian invasion of Ukraine necessitated some response from the WTO. As a substitute of loosening WTO guidelines to advertise extra manufacturing, wealthy nations referred to as for extra restrictions on the home mechanism of export bans that some nations use throughout meals crises. Export bans could be dangerous, however are essential in some nations to maintain vital home meals shares from flowing out to the very best bidder.
In the long run, the 2 selections taken at MC12 – framed as addressing the disaster of meals insecurity – fail to handle the core challenge, as an alternative exhorting nations to not ban meals exports. They ignore the basic issues driving worth spirals in meals commerce because of hypothesis in meals buying and selling, and the over-use of grains for gasoline and animal feed, each of which originate in wealthy nations and are issues they might clear up with out resorting to the WTO.
Farmers and employees in all nations are harmed by current WTO guidelines, which should be reworked for the farmers and employees of tomorrow to develop up adequately nourished and with hopes of respectable vitamin and livelihoods.
E-commerce Duties Moratorium
Early within the web age, a couple of wealthy nations bought a deal that ordinary customs duties on commerce wouldn’t apply to the hardly understood “digital transmissions”. This settlement represents a lack of potential income of $48 billion USD for growing nations and $8 billion USD in Least Developed International locations (LDCs), roughly, for the reason that final time it was prolonged in 2017. That is in keeping with a latest research, “WTO moratorium on customs duties on digital transmissions: How a lot tariff income have growing nations misplaced?” by an economist on the UN Convention on Commerce and Improvement (UNCTAD). To place this in context, with a mixed inhabitants of round one billion, LDCs wanted roughly $4 billion USD to finance two pictures of the most affordable Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.
“With no readability on the definition of digital transmissions, the continuation of the moratorium isn’t solely depriving growing nations of their treasured monetary assets however can also be taking away their regulatory energy as unchecked imports of luxurious objects like video video games, films, and music are rising quickly resulting in an exponential rise within the income of digital giants just like the Apple and Amazon,” in keeping with the writer of the research.
However why ought to Netflix, Apple, and Amazon get pleasure from duty-free exports to Uganda or Bolivia or Indonesia, whereas most nations’ non-digitalized movie, music, and booksellers should pay regular import duties, which assist fund public infrastructure and providers to a far higher extent in growing nations? That’s why many growing nations, together with Pakistan, South Africa, and Indonesia particularly, fought to finish the tax-free vacation for Large Tech. International locations internet hosting Large Tech companies at the moment are making an attempt to stave off this resistance by redefining these transactions as ‘digital providers’ which don’t entice tariffs in the way in which that items do, as a backdoor method to develop the protection of the moratorium manifold.
Large Tech yanked the chain of the EU (and sure the US) throughout MC12, conjuring up wealthy fantasies about e-commerce collapsing if it needed to compete on a stage taking part in discipline. In the long run, it bought its manner, and the moratorium was prolonged. Creating nations together with Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia have been capable of safe expiration date of the subsequent Ministerial or March 2024, until it’s prolonged. There may be more likely to be much more momentum in direction of its expiration subsequent time.
U.S. Ambassador Tai’s tweet celebrating this consequence was putting. Why would an administration that’s supposedly centered on reining in Large Tech toss them such an enormous bone on the expense of employees? The administration did nothing on the Ministerial to concretely advance employees’ pursuits – however maintained robust stances on agriculture, fisheries, and growth that consign tens of millions of poor all over the world to ignominious impoverishment.
WTO Reform
Of their respective pre-Ministerial Briefings, each the DG and the EU acknowledged that Paragraph 3 of the Ministerial Consequence Doc, on WTO reform, was their major aim for MC12. They achieved it. The subtext of their agenda is a transparent plan to weaken the construction of multilateral and consensus decision-making on the WTO in favor of accelerating company participation and debilitating growing nations’ restricted energy.
When the WTO was based in 1995, growing nations by no means would have agreed to permit its formation with out flexibilities and guarantees to handle a lot of its dangerous guidelines which clearly favored wealthy nations and their companies on the expense of their growth. These flexibilities are referred to as Particular and Differential Remedy (SDT) within the WTO. Throughout the first few years, it turned apparent that the flexibilities have been insufficient and the guarantees have been unfulfilled. After growing nations resisted a WTO-expansion at Seattle in 1999, members agreed in Doha in 2021 to incorporate a growth agenda to handle these inequities and strengthen and operationalize SDT.
Even that Doha “growth” agenda was a compromise. Nevertheless it provided the likelihood for growing nations to weaken WTO guidelines that constrain their potential to construct home manufacturing or agricultural manufacturing, and to control and help native providers. In additional than 20 years since then, the US and the EU have blocked conclusion of those reform calls for, and now even refuse to acknowledge the agenda.
On the identical time, Large Enterprise has complained that the WTO’s guidelines on consensus and SDT have blocked the WTO’s growth of disciplines on public curiosity regulation of funding and new providers and digital sectors, amongst others. They tried to finesse the WTO’s processes with a Commerce in Providers Settlement and failed. On the final ministerial convention, a bunch of hyper-neoliberal nations launched so-called “Joint Assertion Initiatives,” then set about negotiating new plurilateral agreements amongst themselves that they plan to globalize by way of the WTO. Creating nations which might be satisfied to take part haven’t any affect on this course of. The primary settlement, to handcuff public curiosity regulation of providers, goals to set a precedent for a lot of extra to return.
Different elements of the WTO have been intentionally collapsed, notably the US-enforced paralysis of the dispute settlement system.
Into this state of affairs, wealthy nations created new calls for for “WTO reform.” Their intention was to legitimize non-consensus and non-multilateral strategies of concluding agreements within the WTO to erode the potential for growing nations resisting WTO enlargement. This writer beforehand argued that WTO “reform” was essentially the most harmful, and but unknown, potential consequence of MC12. Creating nations, together with the whole Africa Group, in addition to India, Pakistan, and others, tried to incorporate safeguardsin paragraph 3, at the least insisting that the work be carried out below the auspices of the Normal Council. On the identical time, wealthy nations sought to legitimize formal company affect contained in the WTO by creating official channels for “stakeholders.”
In the long run, members agreed to launch a brand new course of on WTO reform. The mandate doesn’t abolish consensus and multilateralism per se however doesn’t embrace sufficient of the safeguards demanded by growing nations to forestall in opposition to the erosion of those elementary rules within the WTO.
And the settlement states that the work should “handle the problems of all Members, together with growth points.” However many wealthy nations slap the event moniker on any liberalization agenda they push. The “WTO reform” mandate fails to include the event agenda, and as an alternative merely instructs officers to proceed engaged on it to “report on progress” (fairly than conclude it) by the subsequent ministerial convention, MC13.
It is a enormous loss for growing nations, which is able to discover the negotiating state of affairs much more troublesome below this new mandate.
Conclusion
All through the ministerial, developed nations labored to create a media narrative to put the blame for the shortage of consensus outcomes on growing nations, significantly India. However in actuality, as one headline put it, it was the EU, “UK, Swiss and US positions more likely to stymie WTO negotiations”.
After the Ministerial was prolonged for an additional day, activists dramatized the “blame recreation” by asking, “Who blocked an actual TRIPS waiver? Who’s blocking fisherfolk protections? Who blocked REAL meals safety? Who blocked WTO transformation? EU, US, UK, Switzerland! Give them the blame award!” and handing over an award that these nations appeared to have fun. One other CSO assertion urged growing nations to face firmin the face of unfair blame.
The important thing win for the end result of MC12 for the WTO is the avalanche of company media protection extolling the WTO’s renewed relevance and lauding the outcomes of the DG’s bullying and wealthy nation obstructionism in direction of pro-human, pro-development outcomes.
Don’t imagine the hype. This was not multilateralism – nations working collectively to handle widespread issues. The outcomes have been the results of excessive bias of the DG in favor of developed nations, and bullying by wealthy nations and the DG of growing nations and their agendas. The conclusion opens the door to “WTO reform” by way of much more biased processes sooner or later, whether or not by undemocratic secretive “inexperienced rooms” that exclude the overwhelming majority of nations, a pressure-cooker atmosphere to just accept no matter is on the desk, or breakaway teams of developed nations launching negotiations on their wish-list and leaving growth priorities behind.
Disgracefully, the end result on vaccines will most likely not save a single life from Covid, and the agriculture outcomes won’t handle the basic issues inflicting meals insecurity. On every of the problems – flexibilities from dangerous WTO guidelines on IP and agriculture – growing nations didn’t obtain their foremost consequence, and as an alternative have been left attempting to mitigate the harm of developed nations’ calls for to increase the free rides for Large Tech and Large Fish. The WTO did not ship what the world wanted in every enviornment.
Now there may be speak of setting the subsequent Ministerial Convention, MC13, for the accelerated date of March of 2023. The United Arab Emirates has provided to host, in Abu Dhabi.
The wrestle to rework the present commerce system into one which serves individuals and the planet was set again final week in Geneva. Within the aftermath, civil society should regroup and strengthen its assets to proceed resisting WTO pro-corporate enlargement, together with increasing outreach to and participation of extra affected communities. Within the international North and South, public curiosity advocates should speed up requires a brand new system of guidelines, equivalent to is detailed within the Turnaround: New Multilateral Commerce Guidelines for Folks-Centered Shared Prosperity and Sustainable Improvement, to ship meals, jobs, entry to medicines, and sustainable growth.
Solidarity amongst growing nations can be much more essential going ahead. Creating nations have diversified pursuits, sizes, and affect – as they all the time have – however it’s clear that wealthy nations will divide and conquer if growing nations don’t interact in a unified entrance.
The world absolutely wants a brand new Bretton Woods on commerce. However we can not presumably get there with out stopping the enlargement of company globalization within the WTO first.
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