New Delhi, Oct 31 (KNN) India has sought early start of formal talks on getting the dispute settlement system at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) as the present informal deliberations are creating hindrance for several nations, reported FE.

The ministerial conference of the world body is just four months away.

The US, whose actions led to the whole dispute settlement system becoming non-functional, has now started engaging on the issue of Dispute Settlement Body’s reforms in informal ways, a senior official said.

The informal setting poses challenges to participation of other members of the WTO who have limited presence of ambassadors at the trade regulating body. 

Other logistics challenges including something as mundane as not having enough translators is also hampering broader participation in informal discussions.

At the ‘Senior Officials’ meeting of the WTO in Geneva last week India asked for shifting of negotiations to a more formal setting of a committee so that other members can deploy resources and participate in the discussions.

“We have to formalise this process as soon as possible. India stated that if you want to maintain the WTO’s credibility, we need to talk on this,” the official added.

India has not submitted any paper or proposal on the reform as talks are happening informally.

During the senior officials meeting the members were encouraged to participate in the ongoing reform of the Dispute Settlement reform with a view to achieve tangible outcome by the Ministers Meeting of the WTO which is scheduled to be held from 26-29 February in Abu Dhabi.

(KNN Bureau)