India Hits E-Commerce Cameroon Plurilateral Pleads, No Annex IV Inclusion

[ABS News Service/10.07.2026]

Geneva – Ahead of a crucial World Trade Organization General Council meeting next week, India is questioning the plurilateral Agreement on Electronic Commerce agreed to by 66 members earlier this year on the margins of the WTO’s 14th Ministerial Conference in Yaounde, Cameroon.

India is demanding answers from participants in the agreement on what it says are glaring legal inconsistencies between deal and the WTO’s core provisions in the Marrakesh Agreement.

New Delhi said it wants written replies ahead of the July 14 GC meeting.

Setting the stage for its legal challenge, India explained the context under which the agreement was announced on 26 March in Yaounde: “a declaration on interim arrangements as a pathway to enter into force the Agreement on Electronic Commerce (ECA) which resulted from the Joint Statement Initiative on Electronic Commerce that was launched on the margins of the 11th Ministerial Conference in December 2017 (WT/MIN(26)/W/26).”

Plurilateral Against this backdrop, India said it “would like to pose a few questions of systemic, legal and institutional importance arising from the current arrangements,” to force clarity from the participants.

India highlighted that “Article X:9 of the WTO Agreement i.e. the Marrakesh Agreement requires consensus to add an Agreement to Annex 4. Consensus was not reached on two occasions.”

According to paragraph 9 of Article X of the Marrakesh Agreement, “The Ministerial Conference, upon the request of the Members parties to a trade agreement, may decide exclusively by consensus to add that agreement to Annex 4. The Ministerial Conference, upon the request of the Members.”

No Consensus

“In the absence of consensus,” India said, “we would like to understand the institutional basis on

which the Interim Arrangements (IA) are operating.”

Challenging the DG’s Role as Depository India argues that “Articles XIV:3 and XIV:4 of the WTO Agreement explicitly provide that the WTO Director-General acts as depositary of the WTO Agreement and its annexed Multilateral and Plurilateral Trade Agreements, the latter specified under Article II.3 of the WTO Agreement to mean "[t]he agreements and associated legal instruments included in Annex 4.”

Under the sub-title “Acceptance, Entry into Force and Deposit,” Article XIV clearly stipulates the underlying conditions under which new agreements are brought into force and deposited with the WTO. India also cited paragraph 3 of Article II of the Marrakesh Agreement: “The agreements and associated legal instruments included in Annex 4 (hereinafter referred to as “Plurilateral Trade Agreements”) are also part of this Agreement for those Members that have accepted them, and are binding on those Members. The Plurilateral Trade Agreements do not create either obligations or rights for Members that have not accepted them.”

According to India, “the WTO's depositary functions page confirms that the Director-General's depositary mandate covers WTO agreements and related instruments, and that the Legal Affairs Division's role covers WTO-related legal instruments and instruments of acceptance of protocols amending WTO agreements.”

India further argues: “The general guidance page lists the instruments currently open for acceptance under that mandate, and the ECA does not appear among them. The ECA has not been incorporated into Annex 4. However, the WTO DG circulated to WTO Members a copy of the ECA (ECA/DEP/1) in accordance with Article 37.2 of the ECA.”

Consequently, India sought clarification “regarding the legal basis within the WTO Agreement vide which the WTO DG is assigned the role to act as the depositary of the ECA.”

India asked for “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.”

India points out that “Article 36 of the ECA provides that the ECA shall be serviced by the WTO Secretariat, adding that “servicing an agreement authorized or mandated by a subset of members, not by the full WTO membership is a kind of instruction from an 'external authority' that Article VI:4 prohibits.”

By raising paragraph 4 of Article VI, India appears to be directly challenging whether the DG is truly executing her responsibilities as dictated by the Marrakesh Agreement, or if she is allegedly capitulating to an “external authority”.

Questions for Participants

India demanded the ECA’s participants “clarify what servicing the Agreement entails and explain the basis of considering the above functions permissible under Article VI:4?”

India maintains that, “as per Article IV:8 of the WTO Agreement, the bodies provided for under the Plurilateral Trade Agreements (specified under Article II:3 of the WTO Agreement to mean “[t]he agreements and associated legal instruments included in Annex 4") shall operate within the institutional framework of the WTO and keep the GC informed of their activities on a regular basis.”

While “Article 28.1 and 28.4 of the ECA establishes an E-Commerce Committee open to Parties and provides that the Committee shall report annually to the GC once the Agreement is in force,” India questioned its legal standing.

India asked participants in the agreement to “clarify whether this Committee is a WTO body within the meaning of the WTO Agreement, and the basis for it?”

“If not, how does it exercise functions within the WTO institutional framework?”, India asked. It also challenged the participants to “explain how this arrangement is characterised, how it would operate in practice and whether it engages Article X of the WTO Agreement?”

Given the “importance of these issues and their implications for the basic institutional mandate and the WTO framework,” New Delhi insisted that “written responses to the questions be submitted and circulated as an official WTO document.”

It formally requested that the WTO place its questions and the responses on the agenda of the GC for substantive discussion at next week’s meeting.