Bridges Trade BioRes • Volume 5 • Number 12 • 24th June 2005

WTO Negotiations Begin on Non-Tariff Barriers

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After many months of discussions on how to categorise non-tariff barriers (NTBs) to trade, a week of talks at the WTO Negotiating Group on Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA) concluded on 10 June with an agreement to begin actual negotiations. NTBs can consist of national regulatory measures, including for social and environmental purposes, which impede international trade but are not necessarily currently illegal under WTO rules. Under paragraph 16 of the Doha mandate, Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA) negotiations aim to reduce both tariffs and ‘non-tariff barriers’ (NTBs) facing non-agricultural goods. According to NAMA Negotiating Group Chair Stefan Johannesson of Iceland, the week of negotiations saw “major success” on NTBs. Sources suggested that a narrowed list of specific NTBs had been compiled after lengthy talks in which only NTBs that could be described by the Members who raised them as an issue were included. Preliminary categorisation has begun to separate NTB problems that can be resolved in the NAMA negotiations from those that can be resolved through bilateral discussions or that are, in fact, legitimate domestic regulations that should not be challenged on a multilateral or bilateral level. It remains to be seen which NTBs will be dealt with sectorally — for example, with all NTBs relating to trade in chemicals being addressed at the same time — and which will be dealt with using a horizontal approach, for example on a category of regulations such as export taxes, on which the EC made a presentation.

As the negotiations continue, Members including the US, New Zealand and Korea have been meeting informally in sectoral meetings on areas such as forest products (to harmonise building code requirements), electronics and automobiles to discuss the NTBs they face and how they can be addressed. According to a May update to an 18 April report from environmental group Friends of the Earth International, the NTB notifications include over 200 “challenges” to national environmental and health standards by labeling them as NTBs to be potentially eliminated as a result of negotiations (see BRIDGES Trade BioRes, 5 April 2005).

FOEI’s revised analysis can be accessed at http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/media_briefing/ntbsanalysis.pdf

ICTSD Reporting; “Chairman Cites Progress in NAMA Talks: Growing Support for ‘Simple’ Swiss Formula,” WTO REPORTER, 13 June 2005.