India raises questions at WTO over interim arrangement to implement e-comm pact

New Delhi: India Thursday raised questions at the World Trade Organization (WTO) over an interim arrangement as a pathway for implementation of an agreement on e-commerce, which has been agreed upon by only 66 member countries. India has opposed the agreement arguing that such pacts bypass multilateral consensus and questioned the systemic, legal and institutional importance arising from the current arrangements.

It also questioned the legal basis for the WTO Director-General and Secretariat to facilitate its implementation despite the pact lacking the consensus required for incorporation into the WTO framework.

“In the absence of consensus, we would like to understand the institutional basis on which the Interim Arrangements (IA) are operating,” India said in its submission, posing a series of questions on the interim arrangements adopted by 66 countries to bring into force the Agreement on Electronic Commerce (ECA), negotiated under the Joint Statement Initiative launched on the sidelines of the WTO’s 11th Ministerial Conference in 2017.


“We request clarification regarding the legal basis within the WTO Agreement vide which the WTO DG is assigned the role to act as the depositary of the ECA,” India asked, while pointing out that the Marrakesh Agreement provides for the Director-General to act as depositary only for WTO agreements and Annex 4 plurilateral agreements.

Since the ECA has not been added to Annex 4, India has sought clarification on the legal authority under which the Director-General is receiving instruments of acceptance for the agreement. The WTO agreement requires consensus for inclusion in Annex 4 and consensus was not reached on two occasions.

“This communication would like to pose a few questions of systemic, legal and institutional importance arising from the current arrangements. These questions are intended for the participating countries to ensure greater clarity for the WTO membership,” it said.

New Delhi has also questioned the use of WTO Secretariat resources to service the ECA.