WTO Profile: Roberto de Azevêdo, Brazil
February 08, 2013 | 07:31 PM
Editor’s note: Today we bring you the last of the profiles on the nine candidates to become the World Trade Organization’s next director-general. The candidates presented themselves to the WTO General Council and the media last week in Geneva.
Roberto Carvalho de Azevêdo
GENEVA — Roberto Azevêdo, the Brazilian ambassador to the World Trade Organization, said here last week that his candidacy to become the WTO director-general has been motivated by the fact that the trade organization has not finished a new round of trade talks since the Uruguay Round in 1994 and needs to finish the Doha round to show its continued relevance.
“It has now been almost 20 years since anything has been negotiated in the WTO,” Azevêdo told reporters last week. “The WTO is outside the radar.”
Unless the WTO begins to deliver a new agreement, he said, the public will not pay attention to the organization. “No amount of road shows or marketing will change this reality,” he said.
In his presentation to the General Council, Azevêdo said the WTO’s negotiating function “has been effectively paralyzed since the WTO was created in 1995. We are approaching two full decades of stagnation on the negotiating front. The system must be updated or it will soon become incapable of dealing with the demands of today’s changed world.”
He maintained that “the negotiating gaps will remain unbridgeable if we keep looking at them from the same perspective” and that member countries “lack trust.”
Azevêdo told the General Council he would be “a good fit” for the job.
“Do I have a ready answer on how to unlock the talks?,” he asked. “No, I don’t.”
“But most of the times when I helped unlock negotiations I didn’t have a pre-conceived solution either. When a stalemate exists I not only listen carefully to what all delegations are saying, I also think about the motivations driving them, about previous positions they adopted in similar situations or similar topics, about their sensitivities, and even about the characteristics of their negotiators,” he said.
“Often a very subtle thread of commonality can be detected if you know the history and the details of the negotiation. Then it is a matter of being creative and of having the trust of the other negotiators. They must truly believe that you are seeking a viable and balanced solution. At this point, solutions that were not there at the beginning of the talks suddenly become promising avenues and frequently lead us to a satisfactory solution to all.”
The Doha Round is “doable,” Azevêdo said, even though the recession lingers.
“Global conditions will never be perfect for negotiations,” he said.
“When world economic growth is strong, some argue that there is no real incentive to negotiate. When growth is poor, the theory is that members will be less inclined to open their markets. We cannot wait for all stars to perfectly align in a negotiation that involves over 150 parties. Countries will always be in different economic cycles.”
Azevêdo maintained that his long career and involvement in trade negotiations have given him the technical expertise and political skills to be director-general.
After receiving a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Brasília and a degree in international relations from the Instituto Rio Branco, the Brazilian Foreign Ministry diplomatic academy, Azevêdo joined the Brazilian Foreign Service in 1984.
Before becoming ambassador to the WTO in 2008, he was vice-minister for economic and technological affairs. In that capacity, he was Brazil’s chief-negotiator for the Doha Round and supervised MERCOSUR’s trade negotiations with other groupings or countries outside Latin America.
Before that, he was the director of the Department of Economic Affairs and head of the Dispute Settlement Unit. Azevêdo was Brazil’s chief-litigator in many important disputes at the WTO, and also served on and chaired WTO dispute-settlement panels.
Earlier he served at the embassies of Brazil in Washington (1988-91) and Montevideo (1992-94), as well as at the Permanent Mission of Brazil in Geneva (1997-2001). In Brasilia, he was also deputy chief of staff for economic affairs to the foreign minister (1995-96).
The next director-general “will have to hit the ground running; and running fast and with the ability to engage all of you in this enterprise,” he told the General Council.
“I believe my credentials allow me to be optimistic in my belief that I can help you,” he said. “Over these last 16 years, I have not only consolidated the technical expertise that any [director-general] should have, I have also developed a network that goes from ground level negotiators all the way up the political decision making ladder.”
Azevêdo said that the views he expressed were his own, rather than those of the Brazilian government, but he also noted that it is the official Brazilian position that the next director-general should come from a developing country in either Latin America or Africa.
One reporter told Azevêdo that his chances to get the job might be limited because he is not a trade minister, as many other candidates are. But Azevêdo pointed out that he had been Brazil’s chief trade negotiator and had been invited to the World Economic Forum in Davos this year.
Asked if he had the numbers of world leaders on speed dial, Azevêdo said that if he doesn’t have the numbers, “I will ask my secretary to call them.”
Ministers are important to “close rounds,” he said, but that is after 90 percent of the work is done. “If you want to work only at the political level you are going to be stuck.”
None of the leaders of the old General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade were ministers, he said. Since no round has been concluded since the WTO was formed, he said, “Maybe I have a better chance to conclude a run.”
GENEVA — Roberto Azevêdo, the Brazilian ambassador to the World Trade Organization, said here last week that his candidacy to become the WTO director-general has been motivated by the fact that the trade organization has not finished a new round of trade talks since the Uruguay Round in 1994 and needs to finish the Doha round to show its continued relevance.
“It has now been almost 20 years since anything has been negotiated in the WTO,” Azevêdo told reporters last week. “The WTO is outside the radar.”
Unless the WTO begins to deliver a new agreement, he said, the public will not pay attention to the organization. “No amount of road shows or marketing will change this reality,” he said.
In his presentation to the General Council, Azevêdo said the WTO’s negotiating function “has been effectively paralyzed since the WTO was created in 1995. We are approaching two full decades of stagnation on the negotiating front. The system must be updated or it will soon become incapable of dealing with the demands of today’s changed world.”
He maintained that “the negotiating gaps will remain unbridgeable if we keep looking at them from the same perspective” and that member countries “lack trust.”
Azevêdo told the General Council he would be “a good fit” for the job.
“Do I have a ready answer on how to unlock the talks?,” he asked. “No, I don’t.”
“But most of the times when I helped unlock negotiations I didn’t have a pre-conceived solution either. When a stalemate exists I not only listen carefully to what all delegations are saying, I also think about the motivations driving them, about previous positions they adopted in similar situations or similar topics, about their sensitivities, and even about the characteristics of their negotiators,” he said.
“Often a very subtle thread of commonality can be detected if you know the history and the details of the negotiation. Then it is a matter of being creative and of having the trust of the other negotiators. They must truly believe that you are seeking a viable and balanced solution. At this point, solutions that were not there at the beginning of the talks suddenly become promising avenues and frequently lead us to a satisfactory solution to all.”
The Doha Round is “doable,” Azevêdo said, even though the recession lingers.
“Global conditions will never be perfect for negotiations,” he said.
“When world economic growth is strong, some argue that there is no real incentive to negotiate. When growth is poor, the theory is that members will be less inclined to open their markets. We cannot wait for all stars to perfectly align in a negotiation that involves over 150 parties. Countries will always be in different economic cycles.”
Azevêdo maintained that his long career and involvement in trade negotiations have given him the technical expertise and political skills to be director-general.
After receiving a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Brasília and a degree in international relations from the Instituto Rio Branco, the Brazilian Foreign Ministry diplomatic academy, Azevêdo joined the Brazilian Foreign Service in 1984.
Before becoming ambassador to the WTO in 2008, he was vice-minister for economic and technological affairs. In that capacity, he was Brazil’s chief-negotiator for the Doha Round and supervised MERCOSUR’s trade negotiations with other groupings or countries outside Latin America.
Before that, he was the director of the Department of Economic Affairs and head of the Dispute Settlement Unit. Azevêdo was Brazil’s chief-litigator in many important disputes at the WTO, and also served on and chaired WTO dispute-settlement panels.
Earlier he served at the embassies of Brazil in Washington (1988-91) and Montevideo (1992-94), as well as at the Permanent Mission of Brazil in Geneva (1997-2001). In Brasilia, he was also deputy chief of staff for economic affairs to the foreign minister (1995-96).
The next director-general “will have to hit the ground running; and running fast and with the ability to engage all of you in this enterprise,” he told the General Council.
“I believe my credentials allow me to be optimistic in my belief that I can help you,” he said. “Over these last 16 years, I have not only consolidated the technical expertise that any [director-general] should have, I have also developed a network that goes from ground level negotiators all the way up the political decision making ladder.”
Azevêdo said that the views he expressed were his own, rather than those of the Brazilian government, but he also noted that it is the official Brazilian position that the next director-general should come from a developing country in either Latin America or Africa.
One reporter told Azevêdo that his chances to get the job might be limited because he is not a trade minister, as many other candidates are. But Azevêdo pointed out that he had been Brazil’s chief trade negotiator and had been invited to the World Economic Forum in Davos this year.
Asked if he had the numbers of world leaders on speed dial, Azevêdo said that if he doesn’t have the numbers, “I will ask my secretary to call them.”
Ministers are important to “close rounds,” he said, but that is after 90 percent of the work is done. “If you want to work only at the political level you are going to be stuck.”
None of the leaders of the old General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade were ministers, he said. Since no round has been concluded since the WTO was formed, he said, “Maybe I have a better chance to conclude a run.”
