Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 5 • Number 40 • 8th November 2001
Negotiations In Holding Pattern As Countries Await Trade Negotiations Committee
WTO Members have yet to begin significant negotiations on areas mandated by the Ministerial Declaration agreed to in Doha on 14 November at the Fourth WTO Ministerial Conference. Instead, staff from trade missions in Geneva and ministries in capitals remain in a study phase with regard to the text, trade sources say, and are using the interval between the end of the Ministerial and the end of January 2002 to further refine their negotiating positions and engage in exploratory informal talks.
By 31 January 2002, all WTO Members will convene for the first session of the Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC), at which point negotiations will effectively begin in earnest on the range of areas specified in the Declaration, including implementation, industrial tariffs, subsidies, anti-dumping, regional trade agreements, environment, and dispute settlement. The TNC would likely consist of a meeting of the General Council (all WTO Members) under another name under a new Chair. In previous negotiations in the Uruguay Round, the TNC was chaired by the presiding Director-General, though sources say this precedent may not necessarily be followed, and Members may choose a senior-level trade diplomat not necessarily based in Geneva.
Talks will nevertheless continue this week and next on services and agriculture, which have been part of the WTO’s built-in negotiating agenda since early on in 2000. In addition, a meeting of the General Council on 19 December will address technical assistance issues stemming from a 23 November Budget Committee meeting (see related story, this issue) and document de-restriction, among others.
"Members are taking the time to let the dust settle after Doha, so it’s business as usual right now at the WTO," said one WTO source.
Anti-dumping and subsidies on the table
However, informal discussions are already underway in some areas. For instance, some developing countries are seeking specific forums to address implementation concerns — such as the special sessions on implementation that preceded the Doha Ministerial. For its part, the EC is resisting such a mechanism on this issue, though EC sources say there cannot be any a priori exclusion of a specific implementation negotiating forum.
Countries have already met informally on implementation concerns, particularly on subsidies and anti-dumping: a Special Committee on Anti- Dumping Practices will meet on 7 December, and the Subsidies Committee will meet informally on 13 December to review Ministerial decisions on subsidies, including review of countervailing duties investigations and subsidy notifications.
The antidumping and subsidies negotiations launched at the Fourth Ministerial are expected to proceed in two phases, with the first aimed at framing the scope of the work as it relates to trade remedy laws and disciplines on trade-distorting practices. A US official said on 23 November that proposals in these areas are likely to be tabled in the first six months of next year, though he cautioned that timelines have yet to be finalised.
Lamy-Zoellick on environment
Environment has yet to be discussed as a negotiating topic in the wake of Doha. However, in a 14 November letter from EC Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy to US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, Lamy assured his US counterpart that Europe would not use the negotiations agreed in Doha on environment "as a vehicle to justify illegitimate trade barriers" in connection with biotechnology trade and implementation of the trade aspects of current or future multilateral biosafety agreements. He further reassured Zoellick that the EU would not use negotiations on environment to alter the balance of rights and obligations at the WTO with respect to precaution. The Doha environment text commits Members to negotiations on the relationship between WTO rules and trade obligations contained in multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). This would likely result in a clarification or footnote to the existing agreements, rather than an explicit rule change.
The US is concerned that MEAs such as the Biosafety Protocol under the Convention on Biological Diversity could be used as a trade barrier to its biotech products, particularly genetically-modified agricultural goods. Sources say the Lamy letter might represent an attempt on the part of the EC Trade Commissioner to stave off internal EU demands from health and consumer officials that the WTO environment negotiations be used to expand the use of the precautionary principle, which is enshrined in a number of MEAs.
"WTO Environment talks get mixed reviews, as Lamy assures US," INSIDE US TRADE, 23 November 2001; ICTSD Internal Files.