Evaluation of Environmental Services Commitments and Offers of Liberalisation in the WTO and RTAs

An ICTSD Informal Dialogue on Environmental Services

20th November 2009

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The International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) is pleased to organize an informal Roundtable entitled “Evaluation of Environmental Services Commitments and Offers of Liberalisation in the WTO and RTAs” on November 20th, 2009 at the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) Press Room, from 15.15 hrs to 17.15 hrs. A cocktail will be served from 17.15hrs onwards.

ICTSD has invited Dr. Andrew D. Mitchell (Associate Professor at Melbourne Law School and Visiting Associate Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Centre, Washington D.C.) to present research findings by himself and Ms. Jesscia Rae (Researcher, Melbourne Law School) on the status of commitments in environmental services made by a number of WTO Members at the end of the Uruguay Round as well during the Doha Round (at the time of writing).

Dr. Mitchell will then compare these bound commitments (both market access and national treatment) and improved WTO offers (at the time of writing) with the extent of bound liberalisation that these Members may have undertaken in environmental services under various bilateral or regional trade agreements (RTAs). Dr. Mitchell will also analyse to what extent these commitments, offers and exceptions reflect the regulatory principles on environmental services laid out in an earlier ICTSD paper by Mr. Massimo Geloso Grosso (accessible at http://ictsd.net/i/publications/11432/).

The objective of Dr. Mitchell’s and Ms. Rae’s research is to enable an assessment by WTO trade policy makers and negotiators of the extent of bound and proposed liberalisation of their trading partners both in the context of GATS negotiations as well as in Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs).This will assist them in conducting a reality check on the extent of market access and degree of national treatment they enjoy in the markets of their trading partners as well as the extent of liberalisation (including policy space they retain) in their own markets.

We intend that this informal roundtable provide a valuable opportunity for key trade delegates to engage in an open discussion with Dr. Mitchell on important priority issues and areas of concern in WTO environmental services negotiations and, based on these research findings, their implications for future trade negotiations-both regional as well as multilateral.