The "Singapore Issues" in the WTO

The "Singapore issues" - investment, competition policy, government procurement and trade facilitation -are among the most contentious issues to have been discussed in the World Trade Organisation (WTO). WTO member states have found themselves bitterly divided, largely along North-South lines, as to whether negotiations should be launched in the multilateral trade body to draw up binding new rules governing these four areas. This paper traces the evolution of discussions on these issues in WTO meetings, from the 1996 Ministerial Conference in Singapore (from which the issues derived their name) to the July 2004 General Council session which decided to start negotiations on trade facilitation but drop the other three subjects from the WTO's current work programme. The author examines why the developed-country members have been so adamantly pushing for negotiations on the Singapore issues and why the developing countries have resisted these pressures, and identifies the threats such negotiations - and the resulting commitments - would pose to developing countries' development prospects.