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Challenges and Prospects of WTO Special Reference of Ethiopia

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Challenges and Prospects of WTO Special Reference of Ethiopia

Mequanint Birhan
Lecturer and Researcher @Mizan Tepi University, Ethiopia, BSc in Mechanical Engineering, MSc
in Industrial Engineering and MBA in Business Administration. Email:mequanint@mtu.edu.et

Tepi, October 2021G.C

Mequanint Birhan mequanint@mtu.edu.et 2014E.C

 1. Introduction
The establishment of the WTO in 1995 represented a shift from a multilateral trading system based on
diplomacy under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) regime to one that operates under
the rule of law.

World Trade Organization (WTO) was established with the main objective of liberalizing multilateral
trade, based on the belief that the liberalization of trade brings multiple of benefits to the world population.
To this end, the preamble to the Agreement Establishing the WTO (Marrakesh Agreement), provides that
“[t]he Parties to this Agreement, recognizing that their relations in the field of trade and economic
[endeavor] should be conducted with a view to raising standards of living, ensuring full employment and
a large and steadily growing volume of real income and effective demand.” Countries also join it on the
belief that a liberal trade regime will confer these benefits upon those who become members.

The guidelines of accession process under Article XII of the Marrakesh Agreement are vague and making
the accession process demanding and time consuming. It is also contended that the absence of clear
guidelines of accession to the WTO has been allowing current Member states to impose “WTO+”
obligations on acceding countries, which is more burdensome especially on least developing countries.

Their application for membership was motivated by a desire to ensure predictable market access and
become eligible for the special concessions available to LDCs under WTO rules. Moreover, the countries
hoped to use accession to the WTO as an incentive for accelerating domestic economic, legal and
institutional reforms to create a stable business environment and attract foreign direct investment.
However, an analysis of their terms of accession confirms the general trend of exacting significant
“WTO+” concessions by the developed members from acceding countries although they were agreed to
facilitate and accelerate negotiations with acceding LDCs at the 2001 Launch of the Doha Round of trade
negotiation.

2. WTO Accession Process-Legal Framework

The WTO rules governing accession process are provided under Article XII of the Marrakesh Agreement
Establishing the World Trade Organization. It provides very general conditions for the accession process
and is only three paragraphs’ long Article which read as follows:

1. Any state or separate customs territory possessing full autonomy in its conduct of its external
commercial relations and of the other matters provided for in this Agreement and the Multilateral

Mequanint Birhan mequanint@mtu.edu.et 2014E.C

Trade Agreements may accede to this Agreement, on the terms to be agreed between it and the
WTO. Such accession shall apply to this Agreement and the Multilateral Trade Agreements
annexed thereto.

2. Decisions on accession shall be taken by the Ministerial Conference. The Ministerial Conference
shall approve the agreement on the terms of accession by two-thirds majority of the Members of
the WTO;

3. Accession to a Plurilateral Trade Agreement shall be governed by the provisions of that

Agreement.
Closely resembling Article XXXIII of the GATT 1947, upon which its wording has been based, Article
XII does not give any membership criteria, 'terms to be agreed' and the procedure for negotiation.
Furthermore, it does not identify any concrete steps, nor does it provide any advice when it comes to the
procedures to be used for negotiating the terms of accession. The failure of Article XII to provide clear
guidelines on how new members may join the WTO and “terms to be agreed” leaves the door wide open
to drawn-out, decade-long, and burdensome accession experience.

Besides, WTO members are committed themselves in paragraph 42 of the Doha Ministerial Declaration
(2001) to “facilitate and accelerate” the accession process of LDCs. Accordingly, it is believed that this
has led to specific guidelines for the accession of LDCs, which were approved by the General Council
Decision in 2002.

2.1. Accession Process

Procedure for accession to the WTO comprises four phases. In the first phase, a state or customs territory
wishing to accede submits a formal written request to the WTO Director-General, who then circulates the
request to all WTO members. The WTO General Council considers the request and establishes a Working
Party to closer examine the application that is open to all interested WTO members. The Working Party
has the responsibility of determining the terms of accession and incorporating them in a draft Protocol of
Accession, which is submitted to the General Council/Ministerial Conference. The applicant then submits
to the Working Party a detailed memorandum on its foreign trade regime, describing, among other things,
its economy, economic policies, domestic and international trade regulations, and intellectual property
policies.

Mequanint Birhan mequanint@mtu.edu.et 2014E.C

In the second phase, the Working Party members submit written questions to the applicant to clarify
features of its foreign trade regime. After all necessary background information has been obtained; the
Working Party starts meetings to focus on issues of inconsistency between the applicant’s international
and domestic trade policies and laws and the WTO rules and laws.

In the third phase of the accession process, an intensive multilateral and bilateral negotiation on the terms
of accession goes on. The multilateral negotiations focus on the compliance with the WTO rules and
disciplines while in bilateral negotiations each member of working party negotiates with the acceding
country on the specific market access commitments. The result of the negotiations is “the accession
package” consisting of the Report of Working Party, the goods and services schedules, and the accession
protocol.

The final phase of accession process involves “the decision”. Once the final package, consisting of the
report, protocol and lists of commitments is presented to the WTO General Council or the Ministerial
Conference and if a two-thirds majority of WTO members vote in favour, the applicant is free to sign the
protocol and to accede to the organization. In most cases, the country’s own parliament or legislature has
to ratify the agreement before membership is complete.

Throughout this process, the burden is on the applicant to satisfy the demands of existing WTO members.
Due to this apparently one-sided procedure, the following perceptions in relation to the accession process
are resulted: that the WTO accession process is very costly and complex; that the WTO accession process
is taking longer and longer time to complete; the price of joining the WTO now includes commitments
that go beyond the Uruguay Round agreements; that the price of joining the WTO is steadily rising; and
that the WTO accession process takes little account of the specific circumstances of applicant countries
or their needs for special and differential treatment. The basic reason for the emergence of these
perceptions is that the terms, rather than the procedures, of WTO accession are not well defined in legal
terms.

During preparing the complex and detailed Memoranda on the Foreign Trade Regime (MFTR),
responding to Members’ multitude of questions, submitting their goods and services proposals and
conducting the lengthy bilateral negotiations both countries faced serious capacity constraints.
In both cases, given the two countries’ weak human and institutional capacities as well as limited technical
know-how and financial resources, the negotiation process come to be demanding and time consuming.
Besides, lacking detailed studies and scientific or objective position papers on relevant topics, negotiations

Mequanint Birhan mequanint@mtu.edu.et 2014E.C

were mostly carried out based on the personal efforts, knowledge and information of the Nepalese and
Cambodian negotiators. To this end, the Cambodia’s negotiator subsequently noted: “Insufficient
knowledge, inadequate experience, limited resources and limited analytical capacities required for
accession negotiations were also recurrent sources of delay.”
Both countries obtained support during the negotiation process, which was crucial to their negotiations.
Far-reaching technical advice was given to Cambodian negotiators by group of experts from UNCTAD.
In addition, other bilateral and multilateral donors provided some help to the government in conducting
its accession negotiations. Nepal also received an important technical assistance from UNDP, including
support in the preparation of negotiating documents, commissioning some background papers, building
negotiating capacity and promoting public awareness of WTO membership. Nevertheless, these efforts
were confronted to bear fruit due to lack of “targeted and coordinated technical assistance” to support
LDCs’ accession.
In relation to involvement of non-government stakeholders in the negotiations, the two countries had
different experiences. Although a series of consultations with Cambodia’s private sector and to a limited
extent civil society undertaken, effective input from affected stakeholders was chiefly limited to the
garment industry, which had the leading stake in the negotiations. On the other hand, several international
and domestic civil society groups were actively engaged in the Nepalese accession process, providing
analysis and organizing discussion forums, which in some cases enabled the Nepalese government to
avoid more onerous commitments.

2.2. Tariff Bindings in Trade in Goods

Even if WTO Members had agreed to “exercise restraint in seeking concessions and commitments on
trade in goods and services from acceding LDCs” in practice both Cambodia and Nepal were asked to
make concessions that not only exceed beyond their capacities and stage of development but also beyond
WTO requirements.

Nepal bound its tariff rates at 42% for agricultural products and 24% for industrial goods while Cambodia
maintained only 28.1% for agricultural products and 17.7% for nonagricultural goods. The two countries
have some of the lowest average bound rates among the LDCs at 26% and 19% respectively; while
Bangladesh, also LDC WTO founding member, has the highest at 163.6%. Likewise, Cambodia’s
maximum duty of 60% is one of the lowest among the LDCs. In contrast, most developed countries such
as the EU (264%), U.S.A (350%) and Japan (958%) have reserved the right to apply high tariffs on some

Mequanint Birhan mequanint@mtu.edu.et 2014E.C

products. Furthermore, Nepal and Cambodia agreed to bind the vast majority of their tariff lines (99.4%
and 100% respectively). Quite the opposite, while over half of the LDCs have bound less than 50% of
their tariff lines, only nine incumbent LDCs have a 100% binding coverage.
It is worth noting that although Nepal wanted to create a policy space for protecting the agricultural sector,
should the need arise, by binding tariffs on agricultural products at an average of 60%, the developed
Member countries, notably the United States of America, opposed such a proposal and Nepal was forced
to bind its average tariff at 42% on the agricultural sector.
Therefore, the comparisons between countries’ tariff schedules underscore the extensive market access
commitments the two countries made prior to and locked in during accession.
2.3. Trade in Services
In the area of services and investment, the Cambodia’s and Nepal’s accession packages are also described
as overly extensive. Unprecedentedly, both countries made excessive commitments to liberalize the trade
in services, opening up all of the 11 service sectors under the WTO classification, some fully and others
partially and with transition periods (including 70 sub-sectors in Nepal and 74 sub-sectors in Cambodia).
Cambodia and Nepal were asked to assume commitments on audio-visual and distribution services, on
which none of the incumbent LDCs have undertaken any commitment, and they were highly
influenced by developed countries, notably USA. On the contrary, Bangladesh, also a least-developed
WTO founding Member, has only liberalized two sectors and 11 sub-sectors. Furthermore, even if Nepal
was asked to open all services sector in which it has made commitment, for 100% equity participation by
foreigners within a period of five years, due to the voice of stakeholders and the firm stand of its
negotiators, it has succeeded in reducing foreign equity participation only up to 80%.
Under their commitments, all four modes of supply subject matter to the disciplines of the General
Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) are covered, including commercial presence (mode 3).

3. Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)

In relation to TRIPS agreement, Cambodia and Nepal were required to undertake many obligations which
are far beyond not only particular capacity and needs of LDCs, but also beyond the requirement of WTO.
For instance, as part of its action plan for implementing the TRIPS Agreement, Cambodia agreed to join
the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV). However, the
Agreement leaves it up to Members to decide how they would like to protect plant varieties, be it through
patents, a sui generis system (which does not necessarily have to be UPOV) or a combination of both

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(Article 27.3b). For the sake of flexibility, some countries have opted to develop their own systems feeling
that UPOV did not provide sufficient flexibility to ensure protection of the rights of farmers to freely save,
re-use and exchange seeds. Requiring Cambodia to accede to UPOV agreement has been considered a
“plus” provision for the reason that the General Council stated that being a signatory to the Plurilateral
Agreements should not be imposed as a condition to membership.

4. Special and Differential Treatment

Although the WTO Members have agreed to extend existing special & differential treatment provisions
and transitional periods to all acceding LDCs, the cases of Cambodia and Nepal show that these promises
ware not put into practice. For instance, LDCs are not required to undertake any reduction commitments
with respect to agricultural export subsidies under the WTO Agreement on Agriculture. Nonetheless,
Cambodia was forced to bind its agricultural export subsidies at zero, a commitment that no other LDC
has been required to make. With reference to this specific provision, Cambodia opposed the deprivation
of its ability to utilize domestic export subsidies in order to support its agricultural industry. The Working
Party has been criticized for failing to grant benefits favorable to LDCs under the Agreement since much
of Cambodia’s future economic development revolves around strengthening this industry.
In addition, both Cambodia and Nepal were forced to make commitments considered as excessive relative
to their LDC Member status. With regard to pharmaceutical patents, the 2001 Doha Declaration on the
TRIPS Agreement and Public Health states that LDC members would be allowed until January 1, 2016 to
implement or apply Sections 5 and 7 of Part II of the TRIPS Agreement. In contrast, Cambodia ultimately
agreed to adhere to a January 1, 2007 deadline for compliance to the entire TRIPS Agreement. Before
arriving at this date, Cambodia had originally requested a transition period for TRIPS compliance that
would expire in 2009.
Similarly, although the TRIPS Agreement states that LDCs are provided transition period up to 1 January
2007 for the implementation of the Agreement, Nepal was asked to implement the non-discrimination
provisions (most favored nations and national treatment) contained in the TRIPS Agreement right from
the date of accession. Moreover, the developed countries did not make any reference to Declaration on
TRIPS and Public Health adopted by the trade ministers at Doha in November 2001 in the Working Party
Report.

Mequanint Birhan mequanint@mtu.edu.et 2014E.C

 5. Accession Process, experiences of developed and developing countries

Even though the WTO members agreed “to facilitate and accelerate negotiations with acceding LDCs”
at the 2001 Launch of the Doha Round of trade negotiations, the accession process of Nepal and Cambodia
was not much shorter than that of other countries mainly because of capacity constraints and lengthy
process in proceeding with the negotiations. In the case of Cambodia, the accession process (from
application to full membership) lasted about 10 years while Nepal’s negotiations (from re-application)
took a little over eight years. In comparison, negotiations of other recently acceded countries took between
seven and 15 years. Cape Verde, which until 2007 was also classified as an LDC, required eight years to
join the WTO.

Yet, due to the lack of a formal, institutionalized mechanism for involvement, even in the case of Nepal,
the majority of stakeholders felt that they were left out from the accession process.
5.1. Accession Commitments of Cambodia and Nepal

In what follows, some instances of commitments that could be described as overly extensive will be
provided. The aim of the analysis is to examine whether LDCs are accorded special and differential
treatment in practice as promised in different agreements of WTO.
5.2. Accession Implementation of Cambodia and Nepal

In the course of accession to the WTO, the two countries undertook to implement ambitious legislative
reform plans. For instance, Cambodia dedicated to pass no less than 47 laws and regulations by 2007
while Nepal was to enact 10 new laws and regulations and amend 25 existing laws and regulations.
However, both countries could not perform these plans at the scheduled time. Cambodia had adopted just
only 24 of the 47 laws and regulations while Nepal had enacted three of the 10 new laws and adopted
eight of the 25 amendments by the end of 2007. Particularly, while Nepal lacks proper regulatory
mechanisms in most of the services sector so far, none of GATS-related regulations have been adopted in
Cambodia.

Several factors are believed to cause the delays. Following the accession, in both countries, the impetus
to implement WTO-related reforms decreased quickly partly because of outside pressure for reform
declined significantly, since there is no an international monitoring mechanism and consequences for not
fulfilling accession commitments. The legislation to implement WTO commitments represents only part
of the Cambodia’s broader legal reform process.

Mequanint Birhan mequanint@mtu.edu.et 2014E.C

Furthermore, the progress was critically impeded due to limited capacities to draft, implement and enforce
the laws and regulations and set up and manage the necessary institutions. Multilateral and bilateral
technical assistance activities have not been sufficiently comprehensive and effective even though they
have augmented subsequent to the countries’ accession. The other challenge has been lack of coordination
among the different donors. For instance, bilateral donors have tended to fund activities based on their
national interests, such as to develop specific laws that were often drafted by foreign experts based on
model laws from the donor countries. Also, assistance has not been uniformly distributed among
beneficiaries. While assistance to other ministries remains inadequate, much of the assistance was directed
to ministries of trade and finance.
Generally, the technical assistance that the two countries received after WTO membership has been
inadequate. In particular, assistance has been lacking to help address supply-side constraints that prevent
the countries from benefiting from WTO membership. As a result, WTO membership has not helped
achieve key policy objectives related to trade, i.e. trade diversification and expansion.
Ethiopian government in principle cannot be a barrier to Ethiopia’s accession to WTO since GATS does
not specifically attach financial liberalization with the accession process. But there are stringent ‘WTO p
lus’ demands during the accession negotiations that may complicate Ethiopia’s accession to WTO. Ther
e are practical experiences that justify this assumption.

One of the reasons that delayed the accession process of China for 15 years is China’s resistance to meet
the demands of the western countries on financial liberalization. In the same token, one of the major tho
rny issues that are delaying the accession process of Russian Federation to WTO is its failure to meet the
demands of the United States on financial sector liberalization.16.
Furthermore, strength and capacity of the country determines its gains from the bilateral and multilateral
negotiations during the accession process. For instance, China has forcefully held that the opening of do
mestic markets, especially in the financial sector by developing countries, should be a gradual process to
which the developed countries forced to accept China’s negotiation position.17 The United States, the E
U, and other advanced developed WTO members have argued that Russia needs an efficient financial se
rvices industry to promote economic growth and development

Mequanint Birhan mequanint@mtu.edu.et 2014E.C

 6. Ethiopia Learn from the Experiences of Cambodia and Nepal
Nepal and Cambodia are the only two least developed countries joined the WTO through the process of
accession. They faced variety of challenges in the course of their accession process, mainly due to lack of
technical assistance and capacity to negotiate. They were forced to accept more onerous terms of
negotiations which go beyond their specific capacities and even WTO requirements. As Ethiopia is also
one of the least developed countries currently acceding to the WTO, it is logical to expect that it may face
challenges that Cambodia and Nepal have already confronted. Thus, the experiences of these countries
could assist Ethiopia not to repeat avoidable mistakes which would be committed in the course of its
accession process and its implementation. A number of lessons that can be derived from the preceding
analysis of experiences of the two LDCs regarding their accession process, commitments and
implementation are produced.

7. Accession in Ethiopia Prospects

Ethiopia’s Accession to World Trade Organization (WTO) has a number of implications to existing econ
omic and financial sector polices of the country. Assessing major areas of possible policy amendments
and reversals is critically important in the financial sector for the accession process as well as its afterma
th. This paper attempted to deal with this issue based on qualitative policy analysis. It is found that a co
mparative analysis of the existing financial sector policies vis‐à‐
vis the principles and practices of WTO suggests that there are different policies in the financial sector s
ystem that are incompatible with requirements of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) a
nd the practices in trade negotiations. One of such incompatibility is related to the existing policy that pr
ohibits the participation of foreign financial institutions in the domestic financial market.
Currently, Ethiopia is also in the process of accession to the WTO. Needless to state, WTO accession is
not an end in itself but a means to achieve greater national economic development objectives. On the other
hand, the process of accession and terms of commitments have been found so demanding and the potential
prospects of being a member of the WTO are mixed with potential challenges. As what is accepted during
the bilateral negotiation phase finally binds an acceding country, it would be wise to carefully and
strategically negotiate favorable terms rather than rushing to agree to all onerous terms which
compromises the national development objectives instead of bringing the anticipated benefits of
membership. To this end, learning from the experiences of other countries, notably LDCs, which have
passed through the same process while acceding to the WTO, would be significant.

Mequanint Birhan mequanint@mtu.edu.et 2014E.C

 8. Challenges
1. It has been found that the accession process of the WTO membership is challenging and prolonged due
to lack of clear guidelines in Article XII of Marrakesh Agreement on “terms to be agreed between acceding
country and WTO”. Nepal and Cambodia had to pass through complex steps like non-LDCs although the
WTO members committed to simplify and streamline the negotiation process for LDCs. Furthermore,
since the developed incumbent Members requested them strict demands in the phase of bilateral
negotiations, the two countries faced challenges particularly during this stage.
2. The instances of commitments which the two countries were asked to make clearly shows the tendency
of the developed member countries of the WTO in imposing WTO+ conditions on LDCs. In the course of
their accession process, Nepal and Cambodia have been asked to make commitments that are not
proportionate to their level of economic development, capacity, trade and financial needs. Surprisingly,
their commitments are even more onerous than incumbent LDC Members and even some developing and
developed country Members regardless of their commitments to exercise restraint in seeking concessions
and commitments on trade in goods and services from acceding LDCs. The WTO accession process is
power based and the practice deviates from the theory. In practice, the acceding countries have no role to
play while setting the rules relating to accession as they are outside the system. The process is mainly one-
sided.
3. Although the technical assistance that the two countries received after WTO membership has been
inadequate, the one that they had received at the time of their accession process was essential to prepare
the complex documentation and build capacities. Due to lack of technical assistance after their
membership, the two countries faced challenges in reaping benefits from the WTO accession, particularly
in realizing key policy objectives related to trade: trade diversification and expansion. Coupled with
inadequate technical assistance, the absence of a monitoring mechanism and enforcement compliance
deadlines has resulted in loss of momentum for implementing commitments in both countries despite their
serious endeavor to effective and timely implementation of their accession obligations. Thus, it is learnt
that technical assistance is vital not only at the stage of accession process but also to implement accession
commitments of LDCs as well as to reap the benefits of WTO membership
4. The commitments of the two countries show that Cambodia agreed to accept more burdensome terms
while Nepal was able to negotiate relatively more favorable terms of accession. Nepal was being more
successful than Cambodia because of the technical assistance it received during the accession process and
chiefly due to stakeholder participation in the negotiation process. Even in the case of Nepal, the majority

Mequanint Birhan mequanint@mtu.edu.et 2014E.C

of stakeholders believed that they were left out of the accession process though the analyses and discussion
forums offered by civil society groups allowed the Nepalese government to avoid more onerous
commitments in some cases. Moreover, interaction between the government and the stakeholders has not
continued since the WTO accession. Therefore, it is learned that participation of stakeholders in the LDCs’
accession is vital to bargain against the strict demands of incumbent members of the WTO.

9. Conclusion and recommendations

Since Ethiopia is beneficiary of the preference markets such as AGOA (African Growth Opportunity Act)
and EBA (Everything but Arms), it should not hurry to join the WTO by accepting onerous commitments
that may be asked by the incumbent members. Rather, it should take time to negotiate more favorable
terms in line with its development objectives and the potential benefits of the WTO membership.
Particularly, Ethiopia should not agree to undertake higher levels of commitments than those made by
the founding LDCs of the WTO. To reap the benefits of joining the WTO, Ethiopia should design clearly
defined objectives of accession. From the experiences of Cambodia and Nepal, it has been observed that
since the accession negotiation is bilateral and finally binding on acceding countries, Ethiopia is expected
to design negotiation goals in relation to trade in goods, services and intellectual property rights. In the
course of this process, it has to take into account its peculiar needs and should strive to secure concessions
that match with its capacity. Specifically, it should:
Ensure that tariffs are bound at a higher rate than the existing applied rates because the experience of
members shows that tariff can be used as an important policy instrument and this is possibility; it is also
major source of revenue for countries like Ethiopia. So Ethiopia should strive to negotiate to bind its tariff
rates more than that of Nepal and Cambodia. Moreover, it should apply tariff picks for sensitive sectors.
Negotiate for a long transition period to implement accession commitments; for example, ensuring that
the country secures transition periods for the implementation of the TRIPS agreement (2016 in relation to
patent protection for pharmaceutical products);
Make the most out of the Special and Differential Treatment arrangements; for instance, it should
strive to secure the right to provide subsidy to its agriculture. Given the importance of the agricultural
sector in its economy, particularly its role in human development, food security and rural development,
Ethiopia should not be required to make commitments on subsidies and tariffs. It should maintain
flexibility in terms of tariffs, domestic support and subsidy when the need arises. In this regard, although
Cambodia fell to maintain subsidy on agriculture, Nepal has succeeded in retaining it.

Mequanint Birhan mequanint@mtu.edu.et 2014E.C

Similar to Nepal and Cambodia, Ethiopia is more likely to be asked to liberalize all its services sectors
including the one that the government currently considers as the key sectors such as financial, telecom,
professional, distribution, education and others for foreigners’ involvement and competition. Since GATS
is flexible in allowing specific commitments and progressive liberalization in line with national policy
objectives and level of development of individual members, both overall and individual sectors, Ethiopia
should design strategy to identify the sectors to be opened for foreign competition and those should not
be, the conditions and modes of their opening up. It should negotiate smartly to make use of the flexibility
under GATS and should open fewer sectors with limitations and conditions in line with its development
situation and implementation capacities. In so doing, it should not repeat mistakes that Nepal and
Cambodia committed by accepting what others asked unconditionally irrespective of adverse effects of
such accession commitments on their national development goals.
To achieve these objectives, broader discussion on the implication of WTO membership should be held
in the country. All relevant stakeholders should be consulted, including parliamentarians, business and
civil society. They need to be fully informed about new rules and regulations to adopt them, adapt to them
and make good use of them. Stakeholders should participate in the accession process affirmatively. The
experience of Nepal indicates that it is possible to challenge the WTO members that influence the
Acceding LDCs to accept commitments that are beyond their particular needs and capacity by active
participation of stakeholders.
Ethiopia has to build its domestic capacity to implement accession commitments. It should request for
improved technical assistance to enable itself to make use of the potential benefits of WTO membership
as a tool for promoting human development, including by addressing supply-side constraints and export
diversification. For instance, capacity is required to identify process, coordinate and manage the wide
ranging tasks as well as to ensure WTO compliance of trade and investment laws, identification and
revision of laws, regulations and practices.

Mequanint Birhan mequanint@mtu.edu.et 2014E.C

 10. References

1. ዶ/ር አቡሽ አያሌዉ፣ ኢትዮጵያ ወደ ዓለም ንግድ ድርጅት አባልነት ኢትዮጲስ መጽሔት 1ኛ ዓመት ቁጥር 005፣ጥቅምት
11፣2011
2. Http://www.abyssinialaw.com. Making the WTO Accession Work for Ethiopia: Lessons from
Cambodia and Nepal
3. Semahagn Gashu, Ethiopia’s accession to world trade organization and the implications ti its
financial sector policies, August 2011
4. How to optimize the advantages of accession to the world trade organization and measure to be
taken to meet possible challenges
5. Berihu Assefa & Andualem Tilaye What shapes Ethiopian foreign economic policy? The case of
Ethiopia accession to WTO December 2014
6. University of oslo faculty of law:The impact of Ethiopian accession to the WTO on its financial
service sector, semptember 2014

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