Keeping an institutional and negotiating memory

You must of course start by having a clear idea of your countryХs position in the past on the various topics being negotiated. A problem often encountered, by LDCs in particular, is the weakness of the "institutional memory". A change in the government often modifies the composition of the ministerial administrations and more generally, the creation and conservation of trade-related library and archives is not always considered as a priority. These two phenomena together can create a misreading of past negotiating positions and policies implemented at that time.

It then becomes a priority to establish and constantly enrich a documentary and reference centre for international trade-related issues. This reference centre should keep:

• Basic legal documents on GATT and WTO agreements;
• Final declarations of all the previous WTO Ministerial Conferences;
• Analysis and research papers on international trade negotiations prepared by international institutions (UNCTAD, WTO, ITC, UNDP, AITIC[58], ICTSD[59], South Centre[60], etc.);
• National trade legislation sector by sector;
• Past requests from partners in multilateral trade negotiations;
• National governmental and administrative documents related to past negotiating strategies;
• National sectoral impact studies; and
• Every kind of document that could be useful for the training of negotiators

After analyzing your past strategic positions, you should conduct the same analysis for your main trading partners. Indeed, the positions of many of them (in particular for the main players of the international trading system) change only marginally over the years and from one negotiating round to another. Their positions are based on a detailed and precise analysis of their needs and limitations. Their strategy does not depend on the priorities of one individual or structure at a given moment, but presents some continuity. Therefore, deep knowledge of the past negotiating strategies of the US, the EU, Japan or Switzerland for example will shed some light on what you could expect.

Of course, negotiating positions evolve; if it was not the case the negotiations would be pointless! This evolution can be due to the negotiating dynamic itself or to a change in the context. It is therefore needed to constantly update your knowledge on the strategy of your partners to be able to detect the changes in their positions.

Дата добавления: 2015-07-20