Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 6 • Number 10 • 19th March 2002

Environment In Doha Declaration On CTE Menu This Week


The WTO’s Committee on Trade and Environment (CTE) is scheduled to hold its first regular CTE session of 2002 on 21 March. It will be followed by a formal special (negotiating) session of the CTE on 22 March.

The CTE meeting of 21 March will address items relevant to the market access cluster, with particular attention to: (a) paragraph 32(i) of the Doha Declaration — "The effect of environmental measures on market access, especially in relation to developing countries, in particular the least-developed among them, and those situations in which the elimination or reduction of trade restrictions and distortions would benefit trade, the environment and development"; (b) other items in the market access cluster of the CTE work programme (items 2, 3 , and 4; see http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/envir_e/cte00_e.htm); (c) Paragraph 33 of the Doha Declaration — on technical assistance and environmental reviews; and (d) Paragraph 51 of the Doha Declaration — on identifying and debating developmental and environmental aspects of the negotiations, in order to help achieve the objective of having sustainable development appropriately reflected.

At the last meeting of the CTE, Members agreed to postpone discussion of the requests for intergovernmental observer status pending discussions in the General Council, including the latest request from the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) (WT/CTE/COM/9). The list of all organizations which have been granted observer status in the Committee and those whose request is pending is contained in WT/CTE/W/41/Rev.8. This remains a contentious issue in the special sessions, with India concerned primarily that granting observer status at the negotiating level in the CTE could have wider systemic impacts. While observers will not be allowed to attend the special sessions on Friday, trade sources indicate that observers might be authorised to attend future special sessions once this issue is more fully addressed, perhaps at the level of the Trade Negotiations Committee. Given that one of the CTE negotiating topics is information exchange between the WTO and multilateral environmental agreement secretariats, some trade sources have pointed out that not allowing observers in these sessions makes little sense.

At the 21 March meeting, Members will also address a recent submission by New Zealand on the fisheries sector (WT/CTE/W/204) put forward for discussion under paragraph 32(i) of the Doha Declaration (see above).

ICTSD will report further on these meetings in its next issue.

ICTSD Internal Files.