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New WTO Director Sets Work Plan
by William New
Supachai Panitchpakdi of Thailand, director-general of the World Trade Organization (WTO) as of Sept. 1, on Tuesday announced his four-point work plan for the three years of his term.
The WTO secretariat will focus on reforming legal affairs, strengthening the institution, continuing technical assistance to less-developed WTO nations, and increasing the coherence of the WTO's policies with those of other international organizations. Each of the four newly named deputies will take responsibility for an area, he said.
Supachai said he would like to increase the secretariat's involvement in helping members avoid conflict and in resolving disputes between members before they reach the costly and time-consuming litigation stage. He said that while he does not seek additional executive power for the secretariat, an expanded mandate for the director-general to mediate disputes would be acceptable.
Member countries' ambassadors to the WTO will hold a retreat on how to make decisions in the consensus-based organization as it continues to grow to an unwieldy size, he said.
Despite hailing from a developing country, Supachai did not offer a clear proposal on how to go beyond technical-assistance training programs in helping developing countries participate and compete.
In addressing reporters in Geneva, Supachai was realistic about meeting the deadline to complete the current round of WTO negotiations -- known as the Doha round because they were launched in Doha, Qatar -- by the target of 2005. He said it depends on the flexibility of member countries.
Supachai downplayed expectations of quick action on Russia's accession to the WTO perhaps fostered by his predecessor, Mike Moore. "I think one will have to be a bit cautious in that the road leading to the full accession is still somewhat ahead of us," Supachai said. He said he hopes to "clarify" the issue with the Russian government soon and noted that the WTO nations, not the secretariat, will rule on accession.
He pointed to China as a large-economy success story in WTO accession but later indicated that the WTO would not interfere in China's alleged attempts to influence Taiwan's participation in the WTO, despite Taiwan's independent accession to the body last year.
Supachai also said he would regularly invite parliamentarians, non-governmental organizations and business representatives to consultations on specific issues. He said he plans to set up "advisory fora" for the private sector and non-governmental organizations. He has begun meeting with businesses on the creation of a business advisory council and would support their efforts to set their own international codes of conduct, he said.
The European View Of 'Open Source'
A recent report by the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands encourages the use of "open source" software by governments, after finding that it cuts costs, retains access to public data and boosts the security of private data.
The report, funded by the European Commission, found that the growth of an open-source developer base is "increasingly a proxy indicator for the innovative capacities (within the software domain) of a national or regional economy." That is because open-source software is a public resource with low entry barriers and a good training system that is essentially free, and because it is essentially the "source of de facto standards" for systems, the report said.
The report found that European support for open-source software "has a clear socio-political nature to it," while in the United States, support is "more corporate," though fewer companies than in Europe support it. The report makes a series of recommendations.
The Gift Of .name
The European Commission last week published a reply to a question about the issuance of .name domains to people who want to give them as gifts. EU Commissioner Erkki Liikanen provided an answer earlier this year, noting that .name addresses require higher security than other domains because of the potential for abuse.
Liikanen said the giving of .name gifts could be questioned because the 1995 EU data-protection directive requires that individuals be notified of the processing of their personal data. The data used in registering another person as the owner of a .name domain would have to be used for legitimate purposes and could not be used for marketing without consent, he said, and disputes should be tried first through alternative dispute resolution.
Shutting The Cyber Door On Alternative Domains
The FTC has joined with the United Kingdom Office of Fair Trading to prevent two companies from publishing advertisements for domain names that can only be viewed through alternative networks that the agencies said are misleading.
The U.K. office said in a statement that the companies, Quantum Management and TLD Network, were offering domains such as .sex, .usa, .brit and .scot, which cannot be reached by many users without a modified Web browser.
Report: 10 Percent Of World Online
A new report found that 10 percent of the world, or 581 million people, have access to the Internet, with Europe's 186 million users, surpassing the combined 182 million in the United States and Canada for the first time. Nua.com's "2002 Global Internet Trends" found that access by Asian users also rose dramatically in recent years, to 168 million people.
Yet the study found that the "digital divide" between developed and developing countries is as wide as ever. For instance, Europeans accounted for 32 percent of users, compared with 6 percent in Latin America and 1 percent each in the Middle East and Africa. France alone has more users than either Africa or the Middle East, the report said.
It predicted that 1 billion people will be online by 2006.
In other news, President Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien will meet in Detroit on Monday, the governments announced this week. The two leaders will review progress made on the agenda for increased border cooperation agreed to after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against the United States, and will discuss other bilateral and international matters.
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