Common Contracts
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Asymmetries in the WTO agreement on agricultureDecember 14th, 2022
At the WTO, the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) marked a crucial step to- wards establishing “a fair and market-oriented agricultural trading system”. However, this agreement is riddled with many asymmetries and imbalances, which have been detrimental to the interests of many developing countries. This chapter identifies how the countries that were distorting markets through high tariffs, a plethora of non-tariff barriers, and high subsidies, prior to 1995, secured the right under the AoA to continue to distort markets through such tariffs and subsidies. On the other hand, countries that were more disciplined in terms of few or no non-tariff barriers and low subsidies in the pre-WTO pe- riod, lost the right to protect their farm sector. The paper concludes that if the WTO members have to fulfill the objective of establishing a “fair and market- oriented agricultural trading system”, then the first step in future multilateral negotiations in agriculture must set right the asymmetries and
