2.1 ‘Intermestic’ affairs and the definition of the national interest(s)

According to constitutional theory, foreign affairs belong to the prerogatives of the executive, i.e. the Monarch or President, or the government in political systems based on the principle of parliamentarianism. To put it simply, according to this theory the role of parliament is to ratify treaties negotiated by the government.Footnote ¹ However, as we will see, in reality the situation is somewhat different.

Traditionally, foreign affairs were matters of security and military defence and after the cold war these concerns seemed to fade away. However, the 9/11 attack and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan show that such concerns are still highly relevant, even though the character of the security problems has changed. Furthermore, a broad range of what used to be domestic policies is now involved in the ongoing process of internationalization and globalization – a process of which the WTO itself is an important element. Internationalization implies that political institutions, most notably the state, by law and international negotiations, open up the national economy for investments, co-production, and international trade (Hveem, Reference Hveem1998). The borderline between international and domestic affairs becomes more porous and consequently decision makers face a growing number of ‘intermestic’ affairs. Nowhere, according to Goldstein (1988), is the interrelationship between international and domestic politics and policies more evident than in trade politics.

The ‘intermestic’ character of trade policy is acknowledged by among others the Canadian Parliament. A report from the Parliamentary Information and Research Service on parliamentary oversight of international trade policies and negotiations states that ‘trade policy increasingly intersects with areas of domestic and social policy’ and consequently it has become ‘increasingly vital that elected representatives’ views influence the direction of international trade negotiations', and that parliamentarians ‘demonstrate that they are keeping their government accountable on trade issues’ (Berg and Schmitz, Reference Berg and Schmitz2006: 1). The Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade and its trade subcommittee have undertaken a number of hearings on trade issues.

In international negotiations, the national governments are supposed to attend to and safeguard the national interest. In relation to security and defence, the definition of the national interest is fairly straightforward: to protect the territory and sovereignty of the state. However, in modern internationalized societies the definition of the national interest is not at all straightforward. Not only the national interest but also a variety of national interests is involved when domestic policies turn out to be more strongly affected by international negotiations and agreements. Milner (Reference Milner1997: 254) argues that ‘there is no single set of national policy preferences, no single national preference ranking on any issue, and no single national “interest”’. Trubowitz (Reference Trubowitz1998: 12, 4) agrees that there is no single national interest as such and maintains that the definition of the national interest is ‘a product of politics’ and thus defined by the societal interests which have the power to work within the political system and to make winning coalitions and alliances. In Frankel's (Reference Frankel1970: 97) wording the definition of the national interest is an ‘essentially political process’.

The involvement of various more or less conflicting domestic interests creates a need for intermediation and trade-offs. In general, to prioritize and balance different domestic interests are among the most important roles to be played by parliaments. Consequently, the internationalization of domestic policies makes the question of defining a role to be played by parliaments and parliamentarians in international relations topical.

The points mentioned here have been illustrated in the case of Norway (Langhelle and Rommetvedt, Reference Langhelle and Rommetvedt2004). Two issues in the trade negotiations in the WTO have been at the centre of Norwegian political disputes: agriculture and fisheries. In relation to these industries, Norwegian ‘national interests’ are almost the opposite of each other in terms of trade liberalization. In the case of agriculture, harsh environments and poor conditions for agricultural production make Norwegian agriculture vulnerable to foreign competition and food imports and consequently Norway has defensive interests with regard to trade liberalization. In the case of fisheries, Norway is one of the largest exporters of fish and fish products in the world. A long coastline, large fisheries stocks and a fast-growing fish farming industry make Norway highly competitive in international markets. Thus, Norway has offensive interests in relation to trade liberalization for fish and fish products. In the process of prioritizing and making trade-offs between the two national interests in the WTO negotiations – agriculture and fisheries – the Norwegian Parliament has been frequently consulted by the government.

2.2 Executive–legislative relations in two-level games

According to Putnam (Reference Putnam1988: 434), international negotiations can ‘usefully be conceived as a two-level game’. An analytical distinction can be made between two processes: a level I process taking place at the international level between the negotiating national delegations, and a level II process at the national level where each parliament discuss whether or not to ratify the outcome of the level I negotiations. At the national level, ‘domestic groups pursue their interests by pressuring the government to adopt favourable policies, and politicians seek power by constructing coalitions among those groups’. At the international level, ‘national governments seek to maximize their own ability to satisfy domestic pressures, while minimizing the adverse consequences of foreign developments’.

Central decision makers need to take the games at both levels into consideration. Most likely there will be ‘prior consultations and bargaining at level II to hammer out an initial position for the level I negotiations’, and ‘the need for level II ratification is certain to affect the level I bargaining’ (Putnam, Reference Putnam1988: 436). Governments may ‘create a bargaining position by public statements, statements calculated to arouse public opinion that permit no concessions to be made’ (Schelling, Reference Schelling1973: 28). Milner (Reference Milner1997: 4) argues that domestic and international politics are strongly interconnected and that political leaders are playing on the domestic and international arenas simultaneously. Political leaders try to ‘achieve their various goals using these two arenas’, and their behaviour ‘can only be understood when both internal and external factors are considered’.

It lies close at hand to assume that such considerations will depend on among other things the strength of parliament vis-à-vis the executive. Over the years, numerous political scientist and observers have subscribed to the ‘decline of legislature-thesis’, dating back to Lord Bryce in 1921 (Norton, Reference Norton1990). However, more recently several researchers have questioned this thesis. Scandinavian studies indicate that the parliaments have strengthened their position vis-à-vis the executives (Damgaard, Reference Damgaard, Copeland and Patterson1994, Reference Damgaard2003; Rommetvedt, Reference Rommetvedt2003). Puig (Reference Puig2008: 19) maintains that ‘parliaments, in the western world at least (and probably elsewhere too, always bearing in mind that we are talking about democratic systems), have never had such an important role in policy formulation and development as they have had in the last forty years’. According to the World Bank Institute, ‘[w]e are living in an “age of parliaments” with a revitalization of legislatures that make them stronger and more relevant today than ever before’ (WBI, 2001: 32). However, as suggested by Olsen (Reference Olsen1983), an ‘ebb-and-flow’ perspective on the role of parliament may be more appropriate.

The combined effect of the intertwinement of international and domestic politics and policies, the absence of a single national interest and the need for prioritization among a variety of domestic interests, the two-level character of international negotiations and the (re)vitalization of parliaments in general should pave the way for a more active role to be played by national parliamentarians in international organizations and thus contribute to the explanation of the development of a parliamentary dimension of the WTO. This connection is not straightforward, however. It may depend on the strategies chosen by different parliaments.

In short, two different strategies could be chosen by parliamentarians who seek to exert influence on international negotiations: a ‘go-through-government’ strategy and a ‘bypass-government’ strategy (Pedersen, Reference Pedersen2002). One could say that the go-through-government strategy is the ‘correct’ course of action. The WTO is an intergovernmental organization and governments negotiate on behalf of their respective countries. If the negotiators reach an agreement, then the parliaments are supposed to ratify the treaty (if parliamentary approval is needed). If parliaments are to have real influence on the content of the treaty, then they will have to exert influence on the negotiating positions taken by the governments at earlier stages of the process. The go-through-government option depends, however, on the strength of the parliament vis-à-vis the government. If the government is too strong, then the parliament will have little to say, and the threat of denying ratification will have little credibility. In this case, the parliamentarians may try the bypass-government strategy. Other things being equal, we would expect relatively weak parliaments to be more inclined than strong parliaments to choose the bypass-government strategy, and to be active at the international level, including the WTO. However, a certain minimum of resources and capacity is necessary for parliaments to be able to engage at the international level.

2.3 The functions of parliaments and the organization of a transnational parliamentary dimension

The discussion above has been related to the influence of parliaments and parliamentarians. Representing the voters and exerting influence on policy making on behalf of the citizens are core functions of democratically elected parliaments.Footnote ² There are, however, more roles and functions for parliaments to fulfil.

In general, as Beer (Reference Beer and Norton1990: 71ff) points out, ‘[o]ne of the oldest conceptions of the role of Parliament is that of controlling and restraining the executive’. It was not until later in history that the more positive role, ‘to legislate, to make laws’, became ‘prominent’. Packenham (Reference Packenham and Norton1990: 86ff) draws attention to three main functions of legislatures: the ‘legitimation function’, the ‘recruitment, socialization and training function’, and the ‘decisional or influence function’. The latter includes law making, interest articulation and conflict resolution, and administrative oversight.

The functions of parliaments in general are reflected in discussions of the role of parliament in relation to the WTO as well. Legislation and scrutiny, together with the task of ‘reconnecting the WTO with the people’ were important roles pointed out by a Study Group on Parliament and the International Trading System arranged by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Assembly (CPA Study Group, 2002: 11–13). The report from the Canadian Parliamentary Information and Research Service listed five ‘parliamentary oversight functions’: delivering negotiating mandates to governments, monitoring negotiations, communicating with the public and responding to its concerns, ratifying multilateral agreements (not necessary in Canada, however), and passing implementing legislation (Berg and Schmitz, Reference Berg and Schmitz2006: 13ff).

However, the organization of the role(s) to be played by parliamentarians in a transnational organization such as the WTO is not straightforward. Parliament as an organization and political institution developed within the context of the state. An inter- or transnational parliamentary dimension represents a challenge to the traditional assumption that democratic representation is based on one single demos and a single representative institution, namely the national parliament. National parliamentarians participate in parliamentary assemblies, committees, and delegations in a number of international organizations (Rommetvedt et al., Reference Rommetvedt, Zajc and Langhelle2009), but there is no obvious or given model for the organization of a parliamentary dimension in an intergovernmental organization such as the WTO.

A fruitful contribution to the understanding of a transnational parliamentary dimension has been given by Crum and Fossum (Reference Crum and Fossum2009). Their point of departure is the European Union where two channels of democratic representation have developed: direct representation through the European Parliament, and indirect representation through national parliaments and governments. They review the EU on the basis of three ‘conceptions of the structure of democratic representation’. The first two, the federal system and the parliamentary network, are fairly well-established conceptions, while the third, the multilevel parliamentary field, is a new conception introduced by Crum and Fossum themselves.

A federation is a highly institutionalized system with two channels of democratic representation. The two channels are ‘incorporated in an integrated structure of representative bodies’ at both the federal and the state level. The relations among these bodies are ‘constitutionalized with a clear division of tasks’. The network notion is a more open concept which ‘allows for more dispersed patterns of interaction’ among the representative bodies. In some cases interactions may be ‘quite intense and even become institutionalized’, while in other cases ‘the link can be quite weak’ (Crum and Fossum, Reference Crum and Fossum2009: 254, 258).

According to Crum and Fossum (Reference Crum and Fossum2009: 261), the multilevel parliamentary field shares ‘the focus on the division of tasks and competences’ with federalism. However, ‘the field expands beyond federal organizational models, because it neither presupposes institutional symmetry among representative bodies, nor that that they need to fit into a clearly laid out (hierarchical) organizational structure’. The multilevel parliamentary field ‘allows for greater variation among the component units and patterns of formal and informal parliamentary interaction (horizontally and vertically)’, and it is ‘compatible with less hierarchical and more loosely coupled patterns of interaction’.

Putnam's conception of two-level games may indicate that a parliamentary dimension of an international organization involves only two levels, the WTO and the national parliaments. However, as we will see the parliamentary dimension of the WTO is a multilevel phenomenon. The Parliamentary Conferences on the WTO are organized by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and the European Parliament (EP) and the participants include not only national parliamentarians but representative of other transnational parliamentary associations as well.Footnote ³

We will return to the question of what type of transnational institution the parliamentary dimension of the WTO represents, but first we need to take a closer look at the history of this dimension.

3.1 From Singapore 1996 to Geneva 2002

Chutikul (Reference Chutikul2003) traces the origin of the parliamentary dimension of the WTO back to the first WTO Ministerial Conference in Singapore in December 1996. There was an informal and spontaneous meeting of MPs attending the Conference, but no documents were adopted. Three years later, US Senator William V. Roth initiated a meeting of MPs attending the third Ministerial Conference in Seattle, USA in November–December 1999. The MPs adopted an appeal for the establishment of a ‘Standing Body of Parliamentarians’ whereby members of parliaments could exchange views, be informed, and monitor the WTO.

On the occasion of UNCTAD X in Bangkok, Thailand in February 2000, the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) organized a two-day meeting attended by members of 53 parliaments who adopted a declaration calling for a ‘parliamentary dimension’ enabling members of parliament ‘to convey the concerns of peoples’ in ‘the field of trade, finance and development, in particular with WTO, UNCTAD and the Bretton Woods institutions’. In March the same year, WTO Director-General Mike Moore addressed a letter to the speakers of parliament of the WTO members signalling a wish to ‘involve more closely the parliaments and their representatives’.

In April 2001, the European Parliament (EP) organized a seminar in Brussels, Belgium on ‘Trade, Development, and Democracy: The need for reform of the WTO’. In the closing statement the Chairman emphasized that ‘transparency and democratic legitimacy of the WTO should be strengthened by associating the parliaments of WTO members more closely with the activities of the WTO’. A Parliamentary Meeting on International Trade organized by the IPU in Geneva, Switzerland, in June reaffirmed the need to ‘build a parliamentary dimension to international trade negotiations and arrangements’.

A Working Group to prepare a parliamentary meeting on the occasion of the fourth WTO Ministerial Conference held its first session in Strasbourg in September 2001, hosted by the EP. In October, the IPU was granted observer status by the WTO, and two weeks later the EP passed a resolution on openness and democracy in international trade which proposed ‘once again the creation of a parliamentary Assembly within the WTO’. At the Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar in November 2001, the IPU and EP convened a one-day parliamentary meeting. Some of the participants wished to establish ‘a Parliamentary Body formally linked to the WTO’, whereas others argued that the parliamentary dimension of the WTO should be provided through the IPU. At the end, the attendees reached a consensus decision to establish a steering group to prepare options for the parliamentary dimension of the WTO.

At a public symposium on ‘The Doha Development Agenda’ organized by the WTO in Geneva in April–May 2002, there was a parliamentary workshop session moderated by the Director-General Mike Moore. A month later the first session of the Post-Doha Steering Committee was convened jointly by the IPU and EP in Brussels in order to start preparations for the Second Parliamentary Conference on International Trade. In September, Dr Supachai Panitchpakdi took over as WTO Director-General and in one of his first speeches he stated that civil society should be informed about the negotiations and that ‘[e]lected representatives, in particular, need to know about decisions which potentially affect the communities they represent and make their interest and concerns known’.

The statements above touch on several of the functions of parliaments mentioned in Section 2. The interest articulation function is visible in both Dr Panitchpakdi's speech and in the declaration from the IPU meeting on the occasion of UNCTAD X. The chairman's closing statement in Brussels points to both the oversight function (need for transparency) and the legitimization function. Furthermore, we see that the parliamentarians speak of a ‘standing body’ and ‘parliamentary assembly’ within the WTO, but at this early stage the ideas are not very well developed with regard to how to organize a parliamentary dimension of the WTO.

3.2 Geneva and Cancún 2003

Two Parliamentary Conferences on the WTO were organized by the IPU and the EP in 2003, the first in Geneva in February, and the second in September during the fifth WTO Ministerial Conference in Cancún, Mexico. In addition to this, in June a session on ‘Parliaments and the WTO’ was set up by the WTO and the IPU at the WTO Public Symposium ‘Challenges ahead on the road to Cancún’ in Geneva.

The final declaration of the Geneva Conference in February emphasized that:

The participants were ‘determined to push forward the inter-parliamentary process with the WTO which would evolve around regular parliamentary meetings held initially once a year and on the occasion of WTO Ministerial Conferences’. These events should be called the Parliamentary Conference on the WTO.

With regard to substantive matters, the Geneva declaration stated that the goal was ‘to promote trade that benefits people everywhere, enhances development and reduces poverty’. The MPs applauded the ‘intent to phase out agricultural export subsidies’ and regretted that the deadlines had not been met with regard to ‘special and differential treatment for developing countries’ and ‘making the TRIPS Agreement [on intellectual property rights] more flexible in order to improve access to medicines’. They were ‘worried at the lack of advances on the fundamental issue of enhancing real access to markets’ and underlined the need to reach an agreement on ‘reducing barriers to trade in the field of agriculture, textiles and clothing’. With reference to ‘agricultural support in wealthy countries’, the declaration stated that ‘such trade distorting practices, and their social consequences are unacceptable’.

The declaration adopted at the Cancún session stated that:

The Cancún declaration called on ‘our respective governments participating in the 5th WTO Ministerial Conference to add the following paragraph to the final declaration: “Transparency of the WTO should be enhanced by associating parliaments more closely with the activities of the WTO”’. WTO members were encouraged to ‘include members of parliament in their official delegations to future Ministerial Conferences’, a call that was later reiterated in a resolution adopted by the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Mexico City in April 2004.Footnote ⁷

The MPs called on the Ministerial Conference ‘to make a commitment to bring to an end all agricultural policies that have contributed to underdevelopment’. WTO members were asked to ‘set forth a clear timetable for agreeing upon the phasing out of all forms of export subsidies and to agree upon substantial improvements in market access, taking into account special and differential treatment’. The parliamentarians recognized that ‘agriculture has a multifunctional role which includes food safety, preservation of land, animal welfare, way of life, revitalization of rural society and rural employment’ and WTO members were invited to ‘address those issues through non-trade-distorting means’ and to ‘respond positively to the sectoral initiative on cotton’.

In addition to agriculture, the Cancún declaration paid attention to intellectual property rights (TRIPS) and trade in services (GATS). The TRIPS agreement should be interpreted in ways ‘consistent with public health needs’ in order to ‘improve the present situation in which a third of the world population does not have access to essential medicines’. A ‘cautious approach to liberalization’ was required in the GATS negotiations, ‘especially as far as services relating to basic human rights and needs are concerned’. Furthermore, the MPs declared that ‘all agreements require an appropriate assessment of their economic, social, cultural and gender impact as well as of their environmental sustainability’.

The declarations from Geneva and Cancún clearly reflect that international and domestic affairs have become more intertwined, and at this stage the parliamentarians are engaged in a variety of the substantive matters that are negotiated in the WTO. Foreign and trade policy have become ‘intermestic’ affairs and the MPs do not accept such matters belong to the prerogatives of the government. Their participation is needed in order to safeguard democratic representation, transparency and oversight, and responsiveness to national interests. The parliamentary dimension of the WTO is on the way to be organized, not as a parliamentary assembly, but primarily in the form of a parliamentary conference, supplemented by the recommended inclusion of MPs in the national delegations to Ministerial Conferences.

3.3 From Brussels 2004 to Hong Kong 2005

In November 2004, the IPU and EP organized a new session of the Parliamentary Conference in Brussels. The Conference – with the ‘Adoption of Rules of Procedure of the Parliamentary Conference on the WTO’ on the agenda – represented a major step in the process of institutionalizing the parliamentary dimension of the WTO.

The rules were approved by consensus and Article 1 states that the Conference is ‘a forum for the exchange of opinions, information and experience, as well as for the promotion of common action on topics related to the role of parliaments and the organization of parliamentary functions in the area of international trade issues’. The Conference should ‘promote free and fair trade that benefits people everywhere, enhances development and reduces poverty’, and ‘provide a parliamentary dimension to the WTO’ by ‘overseeing WTO activities and promoting their effectiveness and fairness’, by ‘promoting the transparency of WTO procedures and improving the dialogue between governments, parliaments and civil society’, and by ‘building capacity in parliaments in matters of international trade and exerting influence on the direction of discussions within the WTO’. Participants in the Conference should be delegations designated by the parliaments of the member states of the WTO, by IPU Member Parliaments from countries that are not represented in the WTO, and by the European Parliament, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and the Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie.Footnote ⁸

The Brussels declaration includes comments on a fairly extensive list of issues negotiated in the WTO. The declaration stressed ‘the importance of lower industrial tariffs’ and ‘better market access for non-agricultural products’, reduction or elimination of ‘tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade in environmental goods’ and ‘trade facilitation’. With regard to agriculture, the MPs called on WTO members to work on the ‘elimination of all forms of export subsidies’, a ‘substantial reduction in trade-distorting domestic support’ and market access. They pointed to the ‘fundamental need to define and provide a framework for the notion of “sensitive products” and for the issues of special interest to developing countries’ as well as ‘the need to discuss further sectoral initiatives, differential export taxes and geographical indications’ and ‘the aim of encouraging the withdrawal of export subsidies’. The ‘highest importance’ was attached to the ‘pressing needs of developing countries dependent on the export of tropical agricultural commodities, notably sugar, bananas and cotton’ and consideration should also be given to ‘developing countries dependent on export incomes from coffee, cocoa, pineapple, rice, and other monocultures’. The concerns of developing countries with regard to ‘poverty reduction, food security and sustainable livelihoods’ should be ‘kept at the forefront’ of the negotiations and ‘non-trade concerns of agriculture, which include food security, land conservation, revitalization of rural society and rural employment, as well as the issues of sustainable forestry and fisheries’ should be ‘addressed in a satisfactory manner’. In the negotiations on export competition, the ‘issues of malnutrition and hunger deserve sharper focus’.

The Brussels declaration reiterated the need for caution with regard to liberalization of trade in services, especially services that relate to ‘basic human rights and basic and essential needs such as those that provide for public health, education, culture, and social services’. The MPs expressed a belief in every country's ‘right to protect its cultural diversity and to conserve and develop public services’. Furthermore, the declaration stressed the need to ‘make progress in the area of trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS)’, and underlined ‘the importance of providing technical assistance to developing countries’. ‘Special attention’ was given to ‘the protection of biodiversity and access to essential low cost medicines’.

The next Parliamentary Conference was held during the Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong in December 2005. The declaration that was adopted by the MPs comprises a considerable number of institutional and substantive matters related to the ongoing trade negations.Footnote ⁹ Institutional matters include technical assistance to developing countries, greater coherence between international economic actors like the WTO, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, and strengthening of the WTO with regard to openness, transparency, accountability, and participation. Of particular interest here is paragraph 24 regarding among other things the national parliaments and their dealings with trade issues:

The MPs attending the Hong Kong session expressed a concern with ‘the insufficient progress made in dealing with all key sectors, especially the major development issues’. With regard to agriculture, the declaration emphasized that ‘all forms of export subsidies’ should be phased out, and that ‘trade-distorting domestic support to agriculture by developed countries’ should be reduced. Developed countries should open their markets for the world's poorest countries, and ‘permanent provision of duty-free and quota-free market access for products originating from the least developed countries should be offered’.

Other topics mentioned in the Hong Kong declaration include the cotton issue, food security and sustainable livelihoods, non-trade concerns of agriculture and non-agricultural market access, trade in services including health, education and basic needs, intellectual property rights including the protection of traditional knowledge and genetic resources. The declaration stated that WTO rule making and goals should be ‘coherent with the obligations undertaken under multilateral environmental agreements’ and that the environmental legislation of WTO members ‘should not be seen a non-tariff barrier to trade’.

The Hong Kong and Brussels declarations illustrate the parliamentarians' preoccupation with the need to balance different concerns and interests such as trade liberalization, non-trade concerns, and the environment. The MPs argue that export subsidies should be eliminated and trade-distorting domestic support substantially reduced, and they are concerned with the needs of the developing countries. The Rules of Procedures that were adopted in Brussels include the oversight function, but also Packenham's socialization and training function. The latter is expressed through the attention paid to the need for ‘capacity-building’.

The establishment of a parliamentary dimension of the WTO indicates that the parliamentarians, to a certain degree at least, try to bypass their governments. However, in both Cancún and Brussels the bypass-government strategy was supplemented by an element of the go-through-government strategy when the parliamentarians argued that MPs should be included in the national delegations to the Ministerial Conferences. The national delegations are in fact the governments' delegations. We may even say that a go-through-the-WTO strategy was added to the repertoire when the two Conferences recommended MPs to be included in the national delegations, and when the Hong Kong Conference advocated that national parliaments should assign trade issues either to an existing committee or to a new ‘special committee on the WTO’.

The final point to be made at this stage is related to the organization of and participation in the Parliamentary Conference on the WTO. As we have seen, the Conference is organized by the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the European Parliament. The participants include not only national parliamentarians but also representatives of transnational parliamentary associations and assemblies, thus indicating that the concept of a multilevel parliamentary field is highly relevant.

3.4 Geneva 2006–2011

In July 2006, WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy concluded that there was a need for a ‘time out’ because the gap between key players was too wide. His recommendation that the negotiations should be suspended was supported by the General Council. The Parliamentary Conference this year took place in Geneva in the beginning of December. The deliberations were marked by the standstill. The MPs repeated the ‘commitment to provide a strong and effective parliamentary dimension to the WTO’, but nothing new was said with regard to the institutional development of the dimension.Footnote ¹⁰ The parliamentarians expressed a particular concern with the ‘lasting negative effects’ of a ‘prolonged suspension of the Doha talks’ which could ‘put poorer countries in a disadvantaged position’. The losses ‘would be immense’ and ‘among the first to be adversely affected would be the least developed countries (LDCs), including cotton-exporting countries in Africa’.

There was no Parliamentary Conference in 2007, but the Conference Steering Committee met twice, and a parliamentary panel was organized at the WTO Public Forum in Geneva in October 2007. In June–July 2008, the negotiations seemed to progress, but once again the negotiators failed to reach an agreement. The Parliamentary Conference convened again in September 2008 and in the ‘Outcome Document’ the parliamentarians expressed their disappointment and concern about the failure.Footnote ¹¹ The document stated that the WTO ‘will need to engage in institutional reform aimed at improving its functioning and enhancing its accountability and democratic legitimacy’. Furthermore, the MPs declared that ‘it is crucial for parliaments to exercise ever more vigorously and effectively their constitutional functions of oversight and scrutiny of government action’, and that they were ‘committed to play a far greater role than ever before in overseeing WTO activities’.

The amendments to the Rules of Procedure that was adopted by the Conference in 2008 showed that a new step was taken in the process of institutionalizing the parliamentary dimension of the WTO.Footnote ¹² A specification of membership in the Steering Committee was included and new paragraphs were added on continuity in representation, participation in the decision-making process, changes in the composition, term of office and rotation of seats, and a decision that the Steering Committee should define geographical regions for the purpose of rotation.

Even more interesting in our context are the new ‘Guidelines for Relations between Governments and Parliaments on International Trade Issues’, which were adopted at the 2008 Conference.Footnote ¹³ The purpose of the guidelines was ‘to provide all national parliaments with the opportunity to scrutinize and have an influence on governments’ trade policy'. The guidelines should apply not only to the WTO but also to ‘international trade negotiations in the broader sense, i.e. both to multilateral and bilateral frameworks’. Three elements, which were supposed to ‘help to ensure that the national parliaments gain an influence on trade policy’, were pointed out. The parliaments should receive ‘relevant information on trade initiatives from the government in good time so that the parliament has an opportunity to take them into consideration before decisions are made’. Furthermore, the parliaments should have ‘real opportunity to use the information received to gain an influence on its own country's trade policy’ and to ‘follow up on its government's decisions’.

The recommendations included easy access to information, original documents and draft agreements, and meetings with ministers ‘well in advance’ of international trade meetings, and decisions to be made on negotiating positions. Finally the guidelines recommend that MPs ‘specializing in international trade should be included, as a matter of rule, in their country's official national delegation to international trade events, including WTO Ministerial Conferences’.

The guidelines state that ‘[i]t is up to each parliament to decide the extent to which the guidelines should be implemented’, but even so we see that the international Parliamentary Conference on the WTO goes quite far in the specification of how national parliaments and governments should act. In other words, once again we see that the national parliamentarians use a go-through-the-WTO strategy as an instrument in the struggle for influence vis-à-vis their respective national governments.

The outcome document of the 2008 Conference called attention to the need to ‘give priority to the vital interests of developing countries’. With reference to ‘the soaring prices of raw materials and agricultural products’, the document expressed worries about financial and economic crises and the urgent need to address ‘challenges relating to food security, energy and climate change’. However, the primary concern was the failure to reach an agreement, and the parliamentarians urged their government negotiators to ‘close the deal, that is on the table since July, before the end of the year [2008] so that the Doha Development Round can be concluded in 2009’.

Shortly after the Conference in September 2008, a new attempt to overcome the problems in the WTO negotiations was made by a group of countries and the EU, but the attempt failed. An enlarged session of the Steering Committee was organized on the occasion of the seventh Ministerial Conference in Geneva in November–December 2009 and a parliamentary panel was organized by the IPU and the EP at the WTO Public Forum in Geneva in September 2010. However, there were no Parliamentary Conferences in 2009 and 2010 and the two meetings that were arranged cannot be characterized as anything but a pale reflection of what would normally qualify for the term parliamentary dimension. The non-appearance of Parliamentary Conferences in 2007, 2009 and 2010 reflected the lack of progress in the WTO negotiations, and illustrates moreover the relevance of a flow-and-ebb perspective on the development of the parliamentary dimension of the WTO.

The next Parliamentary Conference on the WTO took place in Geneva in March 2011. For the first time ever the Conference was held on the premises of the WTO. In the outcome document, the parliamentarians declared that ‘multilateralism remains the best option to harness globalization and manage interdependence’.Footnote ¹⁴ They reaffirmed their ‘commitment to the universal, rule-based, open, non-discriminatory and fair multilateral trading system as embodied in the WTO’ and declared that during the economic downturn ‘the multilateral trading system has proven its value’. The WTO ‘played a crucial role in weathering the threat of protectionism’.

The parliamentarians emphasized that ‘[t]he needs and interests of the developing countries, in particular the least developed countries, are at the heart of the Doha Development Agenda, which seeks to redress asymmetries and imbalances affecting them’. Consequently, ‘special and differential treatment’ of ‘small and vulnerable economies’ should be ‘made more effective, meaningful and operational’. Developed countries should ‘provide immediate, predictable, duty-free and quota-free market access … for all products originating from the least developed countries’, and developing countries ‘that are advanced enough to do so … should also contribute to this process’. The MPs emphasized that ‘it is important to ensure that market opening and fair trade liberalization go hand in hand with sustainable development, which contains three pillars: economic development, environmental protection and social development’.

With reference to the ‘protracted Doha Round negotiations’ the parliamentarians underscored that there is a need to ‘improve the functioning of the WTO as a negotiating forum’ and ‘rethink its processes and decision-making structure’ in order to ‘strengthen the democratic character and legitimacy of the system’. The MPs emphasized ‘the need for a strong and effective parliamentary dimension to the WTO’ and declared that parliamentarians ‘have a duty to provide effective oversight of international trade negotiations, ensuring their transparency and fairness’.

3.5 Summing up

In the presentation of the history of the parliamentary dimension of the WTO, we have focused on two elements: the development of the parliamentary dimension as such and the subject matters that the parliamentarians have been concerned with.

With the adoption of the Rules of Procedure of the Parliamentary Conference on the WTO in 2004 and the amendments in 2008, we may say that a first phase in the institutionalization of a parliamentary dimension of the WTO was completed. The dimension was institutionalized in the shape of a conference among parliamentarians. The Rules of Procedure state that the Parliamentary Conference should ‘meet at least once a year’. However, the fact that no Parliamentary Conferences were held in 2007, 2009, and 2010 indicates that the institutionalization of the parliamentary dimension of the WTO is rather weak.

Bearing Crum and Fossum's discussion in mind, we see that the parliamentary dimension of the WTO is far from a federal system. The WTO has a long way to go to before the (unlikely) creation of a WTO Parliament directly elected by the citizens of the member states, which was suggested in one of the scenarios for the WTO in 2016 presented by Nogales (Reference Nogales2006). The present parliamentary dimension of the WTO has more features of resemblance with a loosely coupled network. However, the concept of a network based on horizontal relationships between equal partners does not fully capture the character of the parliamentary dimension of the WTO. In the process of developing the parliamentary dimension of the WTO, parliamentary actors are involved at three levels: the national, regional, and (almost) global levels. In addition to the more or less equal partners at the national level (national parliaments), there are different types of international parliamentary bodies involved in the parliamentary dimension of the WTO. As we have seen, the Parliamentary Conference on the WTO is organized by the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the European Parliament, and the Conference includes delegations designated by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, and the Assemblée parlamentaire de la Francophonie, together with members of the national parliaments of the member states of the WTO. Furthermore, the 2011 Conference in Geneva included observers from the ACP–EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly, the Andean Parliament, the EFTA Parliamentary Committee, the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of the Eurasian Economic Community, the Nordic Council, and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Co-operation. Consequently, it seems appropriate to conceptualize the parliamentary dimension of the WTO in terms of a multilevel parliamentary field. However, the concept of a multilevel parliamentary field is not very precise, and it still remains to be seen what type of institution the parliamentary dimension of the WTO may become.

It is first and foremost the parliamentarians themselves that have advocated that there should be a parliamentary role to be played in the WTO. The WTO itself has not been a driving force in the development of the parliamentary dimension and the Parliamentary Conference is still not fully integrated into the WTO. However, gradually the WTO has become more interested in the parliamentary dimension for its own reasons. After the turmoil at the Ministerial Conference in Seattle in 1999, the WTO became more aware of the need for transparency, legitimacy, and better communications with civil society. Parliamentarians, as elected representatives of the people, may serve as a link between the WTO and the civil societies of member states and thus legitimize the objectives of the WTO. Or as the so-called Sutherland report on institutional challenges to the WTO puts it: ‘legitimacy is central to the effective development of the WTO as a force for good in the world, and national parliaments are the key mechanism to secure that legitimacy’ (Sutherland et al., Reference Sutherland2004: 46).Footnote ¹⁵

The declarations and outcome documents that have been adopted at the Parliamentary Conferences have revealed that a variety of parliamentary roles and functions have been accentuated in relation to the WTO, including transparency and oversight, training and capacity building, and the articulation of various interests. Gradually the parliamentarians have engaged more strongly in the subject matters of the WTO negotiations, their possible consequences for other policies, and the need to balance different interest and concerns. The number of paragraphs increased from 12 in the Geneva 2003 declaration and 15 in the Cancún 2003 declaration to 22 and 25 paragraphs in the Brussels 2004 and Hong Kong 2005 declarations respectively. Issues such as domestic support to agriculture, animal welfare, rural development, public services, medicines and public health, and climate change etc. have been included in the declarations. Such issues illustrate that international and domestic affairs interfere with each other and that the boundary between domestic and international politics and policies is crumbling. It should be added, however, that the Parliamentary Conferences in Geneva in 2006, 2008, and 2011 were marked by the failure and standstill in the negotiations. The declarations comprised only 9, 12, and 10 paragraphs respectively, primarily concerned with the need for an agreement on international trade.

4.1 National interests and two-level games

As pointed out in Section 2, with the exception of national security and military defence there is no single national interest as such. In the process of establishing negotiating positions, the national interests need to be defined. The definition of national interests is the result of a political process where a variety of domestic interests and actors are involved. One of the most important roles of national parliaments in democratic systems in general is to prioritize and balance conflicting political interests. However, the significance of national parliaments in the process of defining and balancing different national interests depends among other things on the strength of parliament vis-à-vis the executive.

In the literature on parliaments in general, distinctions have been made between ‘transformative, ‘active’, and ‘strong’ legislatures such as the Scandinavian parliaments on the one hand and ‘arena’-like and ‘reactive’ legislatures such as the British parliament on the other (Polsby, Reference Polsby, Greenstein and Polsby1975; Mezey, Reference Mezey1979; Damgaard, Reference Damgaard, Copeland and Patterson1994). Variations in the power of parliaments may be related to long-lasting differences in political cultures, or short-term variations with regard to the parliamentary basis of the governments, i.e. whether they are coalition or single-party governments supported by a majority or minority of the parliament. We would expect such differences to have an impact the involvement of parliamentarians in international affairs as well.

This calls for comparative analyses of variations across countries and across time of the way national interests and negotiating positions are established. In short: How are parliaments involved in these processes? Are these matters determined by governments or do parliaments have a say? Such analyses could include topics such as the formal decision-making by parliaments, informal consultations between parliaments and governments, the organizational structures (e.g. parliamentary committees) established in order to handle such processes, and the influence exerted by various domestic interest groups. The procedures for processes such as this are important with regard to democratic representation and the legitimacy of decisions made in relation to the WTO negotiations.

An important aspect of two-level games is the interaction between the games played at the national and international levels respectively. The major players to focus on in this context are the negotiators in the WTO, i.e. the national governments and their delegates. On the one hand, governments may use compromises and ‘necessary’ concessions to be given in international negotiations as a means to persuade domestic interest groups and opposition parties in parliament to agree to domestic policies that they would otherwise not accept. On the other hand, the governments' negotiators may use constraints imposed on the government by domestic interest group and parties as a playing card in the WTO negotiations. They may argue that strong interests would not accept further concessions and consequently that the government would risk parliament to deny ratification of the proposed agreement. The occurrence of and variations with regard to such games and strategies are important topics for further analysis.

4.2 Go-through or bypass government?

As indicated in Section 2, executive–legislative relations and the strength of parliaments vis-à-vis governments may have an impact on the strategies chosen by national parliaments in their efforts to influence WTO negotiations. The ‘constitutionally correct’ go-through-government option is most applicable when the government is responsive to parliament and consequently we would expect strong parliaments to exert their influence primarily through the government. However, if the government is too strong, then the parliament will have little to say. Consequently, we would expect relatively weak parliaments to be more inclined than strong parliaments to choose the bypass-government strategy. The engagement of the European Parliament in the organization of the Parliamentary Conferences on the WTO (together with the IPU) could be interpreted in a similar way. The European Parliament has been rather week compared to the European executive, the Commission, which negotiates on behalf of the members of the European Union. To some degree, the parliamentary dimension of the WTO may represent a ‘bypass-Commission’ option for the European Parliament.

In the case of minority governments, and to some degree also coalition governments, we would expect parliaments to be relatively strong and to employ the go-through-government strategy. In presidential systems and parliamentary systems with strong majority governments, we would expect the legislatures to have limited influence on the domestic arena and consequently to be more inclined to implement a bypass-government strategy at the international arena. In this case, parliamentarians should be expected to engage more actively at the international arena and try to make their voices heard at for example the Parliamentary Conferences on the WTO. The ‘Guidelines for Relations between Governments and Parliaments on International Trade Issues’ that were adopted by the Parliamentary Conference on the WTO in 2008 illustrates that parliamentarians may even apply a ‘go-through-the-WTO’ strategy in order to influence their national governments.

Further research in this context should aim to make clear whether the parliamentarians' choices of strategies are in fact related to executive–legislative relations. Or are there other explanations for variations in parliamentary strategies, like for instance the institutional ‘maturity’ of parliaments in established and new democracies, or the resources and competencies of parliaments and parliamentarians (cf. Rommetvedt et al. Reference Rommetvedt, Zajc and Langhelle2009)? And furthermore: Are the bypass-government and go-through-the-WTO strategies substitutes for or supplements to the go-through-government strategy?

A certain amount of resources and capacity is necessary for parliaments to be able to apply the bypass-government or go-through-the-WTO strategies and engage at the international level. As we have seen, the question about resources and capacity has been addressed by the parliamentarians in relation to the WTO. As stated in the Rules of Procedure, the Parliamentary Conference on the WTO ‘will provide a parliamentary dimension by … building capacity in parliaments in matters of international trade’. Important questions for research and reflection among scholars and parliamentarians include: How do variations in the resources of national parliaments affect their participation in the parliamentary dimension of the WTO? What can be done in order to increase parliamentary capacity in general as well as in developing countries in particular? What specific measures are implemented, and to what effect?

4.3 Influence or legitimize?

Naturally, the bypass-government strategy will depend not only on the strength of national parliaments but also on the significance of the parliamentary dimension of the WTO. As we have seen, the development of the parliamentary dimension of the WTO has been a process mainly of institutionalizing a role to be played by parliamentarians. Gradually the attention of the Parliamentary Conferences has changed and declarations have focused more on the content or subject matters of the WTO negotiations. However, one may indeed question the real influence exerted by the parliamentarians on the negotiations. The parliamentarians' influence seems limited so far, but analyses that are more thorough should be conducted in order to see how this develops.

It seems premature at present, but in a longer perspective one may ask whether a stronger involvement of national parliamentarians will change the balance of power among WTO members. According to Zahrnt (Reference Zahrnt2008: 407), delegates at the national missions at the WTO agreed that ‘the greater average participation of parliaments tended to decrease their countries’ readiness to open up their markets'. One of the reasons for this may be that parliamentarians have narrower constituencies and more specific interests than the executive bodies. Consequently, parliamentarians ‘enlist support for their specific protectionist needs by endorsing the claims for protection by other parliamentarians’. However, the impression given by the declarations from the Parliamentary Conferences on the WTO is not particularly protectionist. The MPs have stressed the need to reach an agreement on trade liberalization, noticing that the interests of developing countries and non-trade concerns should be taken into account.

The rather liberal positions on international trade expressed by the parliamentarians may seem surprising. At this stage, one can only speculate on the reasons. The parliamentarians are searching for a role to play and advocate the need for a parliamentary dimension of the WTO. They seek to win acceptance from the WTO and may thus be reluctant to confront the aim of liberalizing world trade. Furthermore, so far the parliamentarians have not been confronted with the challenging task of making necessary trade-offs, giving up negotiating positions and compromising important interests of their respective countries. The fairly liberal consensus reached at the Parliamentary Conferences on the WTO so far, may be put to a more severe test if and when the negotiations move closer towards the intended ‘single undertaking’. More research is needed on the parliamentarians and their views, not only on the delegates at the national (government appointed) missions at the WTO.

As we have seen, the WTO itself has not been the driving force behind the development of the parliamentary dimension. Perhaps somewhat reluctantly, the WTO has accepted that national parliamentarians should have a role to play in relation to the negotiations in the intergovernmental organization. However, the role that the WTO wishes parliamentarians to play may seem somewhat different from the ones we have discussed above. The wishes of the WTO are related to transparency, but first and foremost to the communication of information about the WTO and the trade negotiations to the citizens (cf. Section 3). To put it bluntly, the WTO may seem to consider the parliamentary dimension to be a possible tool for legitimization of the WTO and trade liberalization. According to the delegates at the missions in Geneva ‘parliamentarians usually lack a thorough understanding of the WTO’ (Zahrnt, Reference Zahrnt2008: 407). Consequently, we may ask whether participation in the Parliamentary Conferences and other WTO related activities ‘enlighten’ or ‘empower’ the parliamentarians? How are the MPs' attitudes with regard to trade liberalization affected? And in a more critical perspective: Will the parliamentary dimension of the WTO become a channel for parliamentarians to exert influence on the WTO, or is it simply an instrument for the WTO to legitimize its activities? It should be added, however, that the question of parliamentary influence versus WTO legitimacy is not necessarily a question of either/or. Empirical analysis is needed in order to clarify whether the two aims are conflicting or compatible.