Bridges Trade BioRes • Volume 7 • Number 14 • 20th July 2007

CTE: No Movement Until Progress on AG, Industrial Market Access

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The special (negotiating) session of the Committee on Trade and Environment (CTE) met for a two-hour session on 18 July. Participants described the meeting as low-key, with delegates more focused on any potential outcome related to new compromise draft texts on agriculture and industrial market access (see related story, this issue).

The meeting was the first formal meeting under the new Chair, Ambassador Mario Matus (Chile).

On the relationship between the WTO and multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs), Norway supported an EU submission providing potential language for a ministerial declaration tabled in 2006 (TN/TE/W/68, available at http://docsonline.wto.org), which recognised no hierarchy between WTO rules and specific trade obligations in MEAs. The EU proposed that Members revisit this submission and try to find a compromise between the text and a proposal by Australia and Argentina (TN/TE/W/72/Rev.1). New Zealand said it also would table a proposal on the topic (Para 31 (i) of the Doha Declaration) — pending an outcome in the negotiations on agriculture and industrial market access.

According to a trade source, informal discussions on Para 31 (ii) — information exchange and observer status of MEAs at the WTO — centred on new informal draft text introduced by the Chair. Members broadly agreed on the need to include UNEP in the information exchange sessions, particularly in recognition of the role the programme played in capacity-building. Brazil suggested that UNCTAD be granted similar access. Issues related to the process and substance of information exchange, such as the number of information sessions per year and the review period, led to some disagreement. These issues would be ‘possible to resolve,’ according to one trade official, however.

The observership issue was more contentious, and the EU was reportedly ‘unhappy’ that its submissions had not been reflected in the Chair’s draft text. The EU stated that the Chair’s text did not reflect the mandate and questioned the value added by a list of indicative questions to determine how to grant observership status (see Bridges Weekly, 4 April 2007, http://www.ictsd.org/weekly/07-04-04/wtoinbrief.htm#3). The EU also wanted to see observership granted to a number of ‘core’ MEA as an outcome under Para 31 (ii) (TN/TE/W/66). Argentina, echoed by many other delegations, felt this was beyond the negotiating mandate and wanted to confine the outcome to the development of criteria for granting MEAs observership in WTO bodies.

The Chair concluded that he did not intend the draft to serve as a ‘negotiating text,’ and that further discussions in informal mode would be required to move the issue forward.

Members did not at this point move ahead with discussions on the liberalisation of environmental goods and services (Para 31 (iii)).

The next formal special session of the CTE is scheduled to take place on 1 October.

ICTSD reporting.