According to a communication circulated by the WTO on Thursday at the request of India, on February 18 and December 16, 2025, the General Council (GC) was requested to adopt a decision to add the pact to Annex 4 of the WTO agreements, but there was no consensus on that.
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Annex 4 of the agreement contains plurilateral trade pacts that are binding only on the WTO members who have accepted them, unlike the mandatory multilateral agreements. But such pacts need the consensus of the member countries.
India has opposed the e-commerce agreement, which was championed by 66 member nations. The country has argued that such agreements bypass multilateral consensus.
On March 28 this year, 66 countries issued a declaration on interim arrangements as a pathway to enter into force the Agreement on Electronic Commerce (ECA).
“This communication would like to pose a few questions of systemic, legal and institutional importance arising from the current arrangements. These questions are intended for the participating countries to ensure greater clarity for the WTO membership,” it said.India has stated that the WTO agreement requires consensus for inclusion in Annex 4 and the consensus was not reached on two occasions.
“In the absence of consensus, we would like to understand the institutional basis on which the Interim Arrangements (IA) are operating,” it said, adding, “We request clarification regarding the legal basis within the WTO Agreement by which the WTO DG (director general) is assigned the role to act as the depositary of the ECA”.
India has also sought information on the process followed to obtain the WTO DG’s consent to act as the depositary for the instruments of acceptance of the ECA and details of any communications made to the rest of the WTO membership regarding this.
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“Considering the importance of these issues and their implications for the basic institutional mandate and the WTO framework, we request that written responses to the questions be submitted and circulated as an official WTO document,” India said.
It added that these questions and the responses should be placed on the agenda of the GC for substantive discussion at its next meeting.