Page 27 - DMGT547_INTERNATIONAL_MARKETING

International Marketing

Notes Fourth Level: Subsidiary Bodies

There are subsidiary bodies under each of the three councils.
1. Goods Council: Subsidiary under the Council for Trade in Goods. It has 11 committees
consisting of all member countries, dealing with specific subjects such as agriculture,
market access, subsidies, anti-dumping measures and so on. Committees include the
following:

(a) Information Technology Agreement (ITA) Committee
(b) State Trading Enterprises
(c) Textiles Monitoring Body – Consists of a chairman and 10 members acting under it.
(d) Groups dealing with notifications – process by which governments inform the WTO
about new policies and measures in their countries.
2. Services Council: Subsidiary under the Council for Trade in Services which deals with
financial services, domestic regulations and other specific commitments.
3. Dispute Settlement Panels and Appellate Body: Subsidiary under the Dispute Settlement
Body to resolve disputes and the Appellate Body to deal with appeals.

Some other committees are:
Committees on:
Trade and Environment
Trade and Development (Subcommittee on Least-Developed Countries)

Regional Trade Agreements
Balance of Payments Restrictions
Budget, Finance and Administration

Working parties on:
Accession
Working groups on:
Trade, debt and finance
Trade and technology transfer

The WTO operates on a one country, one vote system, but actual votes have never been taken.
Decision-making is generally by consensus, and relative market size is the primary source of
bargaining power. The advantage of consensus decision-making is that it encourages efforts to
find the most widely acceptable decision. Main disadvantages include large time requirements
and many rounds of negotiation to develop a consensus decision, and the tendency for final
agreements to use ambiguous language on contentious points that makes future interpretation
of treaties difficult.
In reality, WTO negotiations proceed not by consensus of all members, but by a process of
informal negotiations between small groups of countries. Such negotiations are often called
“Green Room” negotiations (after the colour of the WTO Director-General’s Office in Geneva),
or “Mini-Ministerials”, when they occur in other countries. These processes have been regularly
criticized by many of the WTO’s developing country members which are often totally excluded

from the negotiations. Richard Steinberg (2002) argues that although the WTO’s consensus

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