Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 6 • Number 39 • 14th November 2002

WTO: Trade, Environment Officials Progress On MEA-WTO Links

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On 11 and 12 November, officials from WTO Member trade and environment ministries convened with multilateral environmental agreement (MEA) secretariats for two back-to-back meetings, where they considered the relationship between the WTO and MEAs, in particular how to improve information exchange between the two regimes. The 11 November session, organised by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), was geared to promote synergies between MEAs and the WTO and lay groundwork in an informal context before the WTO’s special (negotiating) session of the Committee on Trade and Environment (CTE) on 12 November. At the CTE meeting, Members again heard presentations from MEAs, and agreed upon how to structure the Committee’s work under paragraph 31(i) of the Doha Declaration (relationship between WTO rules and specific trade obligations in MEAs).

With the question of observership for MEAs in the special (negotiating) sessions of the CTE still blocked due to political reasons (see BRIDGES Weekly, 12 June 2002), the CTE had agreed earlier this year to convene an informal special session on MEA information exchange (para. 31(ii)), where MEA secretariats could interact with WTO Members on relevant aspects of the Doha mandate.

According to paragraph 31(ii) of the Doha Declaration adopted by the WTO in Qatar last November, Members agreed to negotiations on "procedures for regular information exchange between MEA Secretariats and the relevant WTO committees, and the criteria for the granting of observer status."

Information exchange

While no concrete decisions on information exchange were taken by Members at the UNEP and WTO meetings, a number of suggestions were raised that sources say have laid the groundwork for further interaction between MEAs and the WTO. These included potential regularised and institutionalised MEA information sessions focused around specific topics; a website clearing-house for all relevant MEA and WTO documents; and enhanced cooperation at the national level between trade and environment officials and at the international level between MEA and WTO secretariats.

Regarding future MEA information sessions, Members remained undecided over whether they should be institutionalised, though there was more support for sessions to be held on a regular basis. Some countries, including the US, made suggestions about what topics could be covered by these sessions, including policy coherence and document exchange, technology transfer, capacity building, specific trade obligations in MEAs, and environmental goods and services. A Cambodian environmental official said that accurate and updated information would help to promote coherence at the national level.

A US proposal at the 12 November meeting to hold two MEA information sessions per year was generally well received, sources said, though there is unlikely to be any agreement on this before the next meeting of the CTE special session in the second week in February. One trade source indicated that it was unlikely that another MEA information session would be held before the next WTO Ministerial Conference in Cancun, Mexico in September 2003.

Brazil and others stated the usefulness of holding the MEA info sessions back-to-back with UNEP to help focus the discussion and air views in an informal setting. The UNEP ‘pre-meeting’ was also open to civil society, enabling a wider participation of views. UNEP further contributed to the process by arranging, with funding from Canada, for the participation of 15 officials from environment ministries in developing countries.

Observership

The issue of observership for MEAs was raised by a number of participants and by many of the MEA secretariats. Many expressed frustration over the difference between the relatively transparent observership criteria for most MEAs vis-à-vis the current blockage for observership at the WTO (the WTO Secretariat participates at many of the MEAs’ Conferences and Meetings of the Parties, requiring only an expression of interest to attend). The EC continues to press for ad-hoc observership for MEAs, but resistance from Egypt, Malaysia and others means that the issue is likely to remain on hold until a resolution is found at the level of the Trade Negotiations Committee and the General Council.

One non-governmental representative commented that holding informal MEA information special sessions of the CTE was not a sufficient replacement to granting MEAs observer status in the special sessions, as they were "special sessions" in name alone, and not real negotiations. Given that the Doha negotiating mandate addresses MEAs specifically, he said, it was vital that they participate at the negotiating level. This view was echoed by a trade diplomat from a developed country, who stated that in his view, a major consequence of the 11-12 November meetings was that "it’s critical to have the MEAs in the room".

Some participants at the UNEP meeting felt that, in the absence of a decision on observership for MEAs, advancing on the information exchange mandate in para. 31(ii) was one way around the observership deadlock. Canada said it believed there was room for some sort of an "early harvest" on the 31(ii) mandate, though some other delegations were sceptical of this.

Members agree on work structure for 31(i)

At an informal meeting following the MEA information session on 12 November, Members agreed on a compromise method on how to structure negotiations on the relationship between MEAs and the WTO mandated under para. 31(i) of the Doha Declaration (see BRIDGES Weekly, 17 October 2002). The compromise, which articulates a primarily ‘bottom-up’ approach based on specific trade obligations in MEAs, breaks an impasse between the EC and most other Members. Most countries had supported addressing 31(i) from a specific trade obligations approach, such as that advocated by Australia last spring or, more recently, New Zealand (see TN/TE/W/12, available at http://docsonline.wto.org). The EC favoured discussing conceptual issues first, then moving on to addressing specifics. The compromise reached by Chair Yolande Bike (Gabon) adopts the specific trade obligations approach while mollifying it somewhat by saying that she would raise conceptual issues as these arose in the course of the negotiations. Members will focus on the 31(i) mandate with this approach at their first CTE special session of 2003 in February. Sources indicate that many — though not all — Members would like discussions to be based on a revised June 2001 WTO Secretariat matrix on MEA trade obligations (see WT/CTE/W/160/Rev.1).

Beyond the February meeting, Members have not yet agreed on how many CTE meetings would take place in 2003.

MEA secretariats present at the UNEP session included: the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) and the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes, and the Ramsar Convention. Present at the WTO CTE special session were: the CBD, the UNFCCC, the Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent (PIC) Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade, the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF), the Basel Convention, and UNEP.

ICTSD reporting.