Lettre ouverte au Directeur général de l'OMC – Pascal Lamy

An open letter dated October 27, 2005, addressed to WTO Director General Pascal Lamy by a coalition of civil society organizations. The letter protests the "anti-democratic" methods used by the Council for Trade in Services to draft a ministerial declaration, specifically criticizing the manipulation of the 'consensus' rule to include contested objectives while excluding agreed-upon safeguards.

• Civil society organizations accuse the WTO Council for Trade in Services of using an "anti-democratic" process to draft a ministerial declaration. They claim the President of the Council is redefining "consensus" by including points supported by specific members without general agreement, while requiring a total consensus of all 148 member states to remove those same points.
• The letter highlights that several developing countries (PVD) and least-developed countries (PMA) have rejected specific negotiation objectives included in the draft, such as numerical targets and mode-specific approaches intended to accelerate the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS/AGCS). Conversely, the draft excludes the emergency safeguard mechanism (ESM), which was a promise from the Uruguay Round and is supported by developing nations but lacks enthusiasm from developed countries.
• The signatories argue that introducing multilateral approaches, such as numerical targets that force countries to open specific sectors, undermines the flexibility of the GATS and threatens the development goals of developing countries. They further contend that plurilateral approaches will be dominated by high-capacity exporting nations and large corporations, potentially pressuring other members into agreements that favor multinationals.

APA

Center for International Environmental Law (2005). Lettre ouverte au Directeur général de l'OMC – Pascal Lamy. https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Lamy_1Nov05_French.pdf

Chicago

Center for International Environmental Law. Lettre ouverte au Directeur général de l'OMC – Pascal Lamy. 2005. https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Lamy_1Nov05_French.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |author=Center for International Environmental Law |title=Lettre ouverte au Directeur général de l'OMC – Pascal Lamy |date=27 October 2005 |url=https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Lamy_1Nov05_French.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{centerforinternationalenvironmentallaw2005lettre, author = {{Center for International Environmental Law}}, title = {{Lettre ouverte au Directeur général de l'OMC – Pascal Lamy}}, publisher = {Center for International Environmental Law}, year = {2005}, month = oct, url = {https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Lamy_1Nov05_French.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }