The WTO Trade Negotiations Committee, meeting on 4 and 5 March to take stock of negotiations, saw no progress in the on-going talks. At its last meeting in early February (see BRIDGES Weekly, 6 February 2003), TNC Chair/WTO Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi had already warned Members that progress had been uneven, and at the latest TNC he said negotiations were facing imminent gridlock. This sentiment was echoed in the statements of Members taking the floor. The meeting was held in both formal and informal mode, in order to allow for more frank discussion, but the statements made reiterated old positions, regardless of the mode of the meeting.
At the TNC meeting, the Chairs of the various WTO negotiating groups — including on trade and development, the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB), Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), Market Access, Rules, and Trade and Environment — provided WTO Members with their reports (TN/CTD/8, TN/DS/6, TN/IP/5, TN/MA/7, TN/RL/4, and TN/TE/5, available at http://docsonline.wto.org).
Committee on Trade and Development (CTD) special session Chair Ambassador Ransford Smith (Jamaica) noted that the group had held one formal and several informal meetings to finalise its report to the General Council (GC) since the last TNC (see BRIDGES Weekly, 12 February 2003). He said positions had not been bridged on special and differential treatment for developing countries, and Members had also differed in their interpretations of the Doha mandate in this regard. The group had reported to the General Council, requesting it to take note of 12 agreement-specific proposals that enjoyed consensus, but adopt them later, and to provide guidance on the mandate while suspending the CTD. He said the GC had not been able to adopt the CTD’s recommendations, and had agreed that the GC Chair would undertake consultations on how to take the matter forward.
Ambassador Péter Balás (Hungary), Chair of the special session of the DSB, reported that the group had continued discussing specific draft text of possible clarifications and improvements to the Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU), focusing on panel procedures and the composition of the Appellate Body. He said the special session would continue to meet every month until May, when the text is to be agreed, and there may be a need for additional open-ended informal meetings.
The report from the special session of the Committee for Trade and Environment (CTE) focused on the last meeting, which had approved letting multilateral environmental agreement (MEA) secretariats attend the next CTE special session as ad-hoc observers (see BRIDGES Weekly 19 February 2003). On outstanding issues, the CTE has not resolved the issue of technical and financial support for developing country participation in the meetings. On the way forward, the CTE special session will meet twice before the fifth Ministerial Conference in Cancun in September, taking stock of the situation in July.
No progress was reported on the issue of approximately 80 outstanding agenda issues that TNC Chair Supachai had agreed to take the leadership on. The next TNC meeting will be held from 8-9 April.
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