IBSAC (India, Brazil, South Africa, China): A Potential Developing Country Coalition in WTO Negotiations

Abstract

Français de Pondichéry) is part of the network of research centres of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Centre's research work is primarily oriented towards the study of issues concerning the contemporary dynamics of development in India and South Asia. The activities of the Centre are focused on four main themes, namely: Economic transition and sustainable development; Regional dynamics in South Asia and international relations; Political dynamics, institutional set-up and social transformations; Urban dynamics.

Rising Regional Powers and International Institutions: The Foreign Policy Orientations of India, Brazil and South Africa

“…57 Trade has been one of the most prominent areas in which the redistributive aspirations of the IBSA states have been targeted, with already significant results. The IBSA states have invested a great deal of diplomatic resources and political capital in developing greater developing country coordination in the negotiations of the Doha Development Round, in opposition to a Northern agenda focused on further extending 'behind the border' agreements concerning investment, competition policy, government procurement and technical issues of trade facilitation (the 'Singapore Issues'), while maintaining extensive barriers to trade in agriculture.…”

Cooperation for Development, Brazilian Regional Leadership and Global Protagonism

“…In doing so, IBSA was a special forum for advocacy for the developing world, and could therefore be seen as a soft balancing strategy (PAPE, 2005) aiming to challenge international norms, rules or practices that might adversely affect the interests of its members, and -hopefully -to eventually change these norms. Amongst its achievements in coordinating positions on multilateral negotiations, we can mention the negotiations at the WTO (CHAKRABORTY and SENGUPTA, 2006) 34 ; its continuous voicing for a distinct approach for international cooperation for development 35 ; the joint project presented to the UN Human Rights Council about access to medicines and the right to medical treatment, the approval of which could be interpreted as an example of success of the political SS cooperation towards development (AYLLÓN, 2012, p. 196); as well as the demands for a new regulation of transnational capital flows (STEPHEN, 2012, p. 304). Amongst other initiatives, those above mentioned gave IBSA the status of one of the most relevant coalitions of Southern countries to act towards the building of an emerging world order.…”