Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 12 • Number 26 • 16th July 2008

Rules Chair Outlines Strategy for Future Negotiations


The chair of the WTO’s Negotiating Group on Rules issued a communiqué last week outlining how the rules talks could proceed in the event that modalities on agricultural and industrial goods trade are established at next week’s mini-ministerial conference. The rules negotiations cover anti-dumping, horizontal subsidies and fisheries subsidies.

In the message, which was sent to all WTO Members via fax on 14 July, Chair Guillermo Valles Galmés (Uruguay) stated his intent to issue draft texts on anti-dumping and horizontal subsidies after modalities are agreed.

A draft text that Galmes issued in November has served as the basis of recent negotiations of the rules group. However, Galmés has maintained that the November draft, which proved somewhat contentious, was not meant to set the specific terms of a potential accord, but was rather “intended to provoke discussion on the broad parameters of possible outcomes to the negotiations.”

Galmés said in the message that talks have not yet progressed to the point where an alternative compromise could be struck. To that end, Galmés hopes to move negotiations forward by drafting new legal language in those areas where he believes that consensus is within reach. In the more contentious areas of the negotiations, however, Galmés clarified that his new draft text will offer “no magic solutions.”

Galmés acknowledged that the state of affairs in the fisheries subsidies negotiations is vastly different from anti-dumping or horizontal subsidies. With no pre-existing agreement to work from, delegates are “faced with fundamental challenges” in developing new rules.

Galmés holds that the fisheries negotiations have not yet reached a stage advanced enough to issue a draft text containing both effective fisheries subsidies disciplines and adequate special and differential treatment for developing countries. Thus, to facilitate further dialogue on fisheries, Galmés intends to issue a ‘road map’ highlighting the key questions to address and areas that require compromise at the same time he tables draft texts on anti-dumping and horizontal subsidies.

Also in the facsimile, Galmés outlined his plan for intensive rules negotiations throughout September. Recognising that all areas of the rules group mandate must progress together, Galmés allotted the first two weeks to fisheries subsidies; the group will address anti-dumping and horizontal subsidies later in the month. From there, Galmés noted that “regular and in fact nearly continuous” meetings will be required in order to negotiate a rules text that will be acceptable to all Members.

At the end of July, Galmés will submit a report to the Trade Negotiations Committee that gives a more detailed schedule for the negotiations.

ICTSD reporting.

The facsimile text can be accessed at http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news08_e/rules_14july08_e.htm.