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Häberli, Christian --- "The WTO and food security: what’s wrong with the rules?" [2012] ELECD 1055; in Rayfuse, Rosemary; Weisfelt, Nicole (eds), "The Challenge of Food Security" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012) 149

Book Title: The Challenge of Food Security

Editor(s): Rayfuse, Rosemary; Weisfelt, Nicole

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9780857939371

Section: Chapter 8

Section Title: The WTO and food security: what’s wrong with the rules?

Author(s): Häberli, Christian

Number of pages: 19

Abstract/Description:

On the eve of the 8th World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference, Pascal Lamy had had enough. The WTO Director General circulated a letter he had sent on 14 December 2011 to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier de Schutter, rebuking him for his claim that WTO rules can conflict with food security. 1 On the contrary, Lamy argued, these rules, and possible outcomes from the Doha Development Agenda (DDA), were good and necessary because it was recognised that ‘[p]olicies that distort production and trade in agricultural commodities potentially impede the achievement of long run food security’. 2 He added that the current rules allowed for the policy space and flexibility to ‘encourage and strengthen investment in agriculture, and ensure appropriate safety nets for urban and rural poor’. For good measure he attached to his letter the comments which the WTO Secretariat had offered, to little avail, on a draft submitted by de Schutter.