India has questioned the legal base behind the move by 66 WTO members to bring the E-Commerce Agreement into force at the world trade body as a plurilateral pact, bypassing strict consensus regulations.
It also questioned the role of the WTO director general in acting as the official depositary and circulator for a pact not formally adopted by the WTO and sought written replies from the General Council.
ECA aims at introducing the first global baseline rules on e-commerce, banning customs duties on electronic transmissions and facilitating paperless transactions, consumer protection and cybersecurity.
India also questioned the role of WTO Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala in acting as the official depositary and circulator for an agreement that the WTO has not formally adopted.
India has sought written replies to its question from the General Council (GC)—the highest decision-making body at the WTO, according to domestic media outlets.
“We further request that these questions and the responses thereto, be placed on the agenda of the GC for substantive discussion at its next meeting,” India’s communication noted.
Following five years of negotiations, when the co-sponsors circulated the final ECA text and sought a decision at the GC in December 2024 to incorporate it into the WTO legal architecture, a consensus from the entire WTO membership could not be arrived at during two attempts—first in February and then in December 2025.
As full WTO integration failed, the participating countries bypassed the consensus block by setting up ‘interim arrangements’ outside the formal framework.
On June 9 this year, the countries pushing for the ECA discussed bringing it into force by the middle of 2027.
New Delhi also questioned the use of WTO Secretariat resources to service the pact and asked how it can operate within the WTO framework or use its dispute settlement mechanism without formal consensus.
“In the absence of consensus, we would like to understand the institutional basis on which the Interim Arrangements (IA) are operating,” India’s submission noted.
Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)
