Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 6 • Number 11 • 26th March 2002
CTE Tackles Hefty Doha Environment Mandate
WTO Members convened on 21 March for a regular meeting of the Committee on Trade and Environment (CTE), and on 22 March for the CTE’s first special (negotiating) session. In both meetings, delegates addressed items under the environment heading on the Doha Ministerial Declaration. Notably, the EC circulated a controversial paper outlining some of its preliminary thoughts on the relationship between WTO rules and multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs), which is classified under paragraph 31 (i) of the Doha Declaration.
Regular Session
The regular CTE session on 21 March focused on market access, with India making a strong intervention — supported by many other developing countries — on the need to maintain market access in the face of increasing environment-related, non-tariff barriers to trade and establishing equivalence of environmental measures. India indicated it would submit a paper on the need to ensure existing market access in light of the potential negative consequences of environment-related measures on its exports.
Fisheries subsidies
A submission by New Zealand on fisheries prompted what Chair Oguz Demiralp (Turkey) termed a "lively debate", primarily between countries pushing for reductions in distortive fisheries subsidies (termed the ‘Friends of Fish’ and comprising Members such as New Zealand, Iceland, the US, Chile, Peru, and the Philippines) and those focused on addressing fisheries issues in a broader context (such as Japan and Korea). The paper referred to by New Zealand highlighted recent research on fisheries subsidies that challenged prevailing assumptions about the benign nature of certain types of subsidies (see WT/CTE/W/204 at http://docsonline.wto.org/gen_search.asp).
The US and Iceland requested the WTO Secretariat to compile a list of CTE documents related to fisheries which they said could eventually be useful in the negotiations on this sector currently underway in the Rules Negotiating Committee (see BRIDGES Weekly, 12 March 2002). However, the EC was reluctant to mandate the CTE to formally forward any documents to negotiating bodies.
In this context, the EC said that since most of the issues on the CTE agenda were being negotiated elsewhere in the WTO, the CTE should focus on how to best to contribute to the relevant negotiating bodies to add value from a sustainable development perspective, without duplicating or prejudging the outcome.
On paragraph 32 (iii) on eco-labelling, Canada referred to its recent paper submitted to the Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) on how to structure discussions on labelling issues in general in the TBT Committee, including ideas on non-product-related production and processing methods (PPMs) (G/TBT/W/174). Canada suggested holding a joint informal TBT/CTE meeting to discuss labelling, which will be the focus of the 8-9 October CTE meeting.
On relations with inter-governmental organisations (IGOs), there was a plea to grant IGOs observer status to the CTE special sessions, particularly in light of the fact that the negotiations concern specific trade obligations in MEAs (Paragraph 31(i)) and information exchange with MEAs (Paragraph 31(ii)). The CTE has postponed addressing IGO observer requests pending discussions on this matter in the General Council.
Paragraph 33 of the Doha Declaration concerns technical assistance and capacity building, and encourages Members to share their experience with national environmental reviews. Comments focused on the first aspect, with Members commending UNEP’s recent Workshops on Capacity Building on Environment, Trade and Development (see In Brief, this issue) and on Fisheries.
Regarding paragraph 51 of the Declaration — on identifying and debating environmental and developmental aspects of the negotiations — some Members stressed the need to coordinate with the Committee on Trade and Development (CTD). In a paper circulated at the meeting, the EC proposed, inter alia, that the CTE could meet in common with the CTD, so that "we are each acting within our respective mandates but equally contributing in a coherent manner to the pursuit of the single objective of sustainability". The EC also suggested that autumn 2002 — once negotiations were underway — would be a useful time to discuss para. 51, and that the WTO Director-General could hold a public event on the issue sometime between the World Summit on Sustainable Development in August-September 2002 and the fifth WTO Ministerial (expected in mid-2003).
Special Session
The special session of the CTE focused on the organisation of future work and began discussions around the three sub-paragraphs of the Doha environmental negotiating mandate in para. 31.
Many observers have termed the environmental negotiating objectives in the Doha Declaration as being limited in scope or circumscribed. In brief terms, they include (i) the relationship between WTO rules and specific trade obligations set out in MEAs, though talks are limited to the applicability of WTO rules as among parties to the MEA in question; (ii) procedures for regular information exchange between MEA secretariats and the relevant WTO Committees, and the criteria for granting of observer status; and (iii) the reduction or elimination of tariff and non-tariff barriers to environmental goods and services (see BRIDGES Weekly, 5 March 2002).
The EC, which at the Doha Conference was the main demandeur for environmental negotiations, initiated discussions on 22 March by circulating some preliminary ideas on para. 31(i) on the WTO-MEA relationship. Inter alia, the EC paper pushes for clarification of the WTO Agreements on how they relate to MEAs and sets out the EC’s initial thoughts on ’specific trade obligations’ in MEAs and ‘among parties’ as contained in 31(i).
Most other delegations — Australia in particular — viewed the EC position as overly ambitious. In the words of one diplomat who attended the meeting, the EC’s ideas "bear little resemblance to reality". Countries were concerned primarily on two points. First, that the EC was going beyond the scope of mandated negotiations by talking about both party and non-party issues, whereas the Doha text limits the applicability of talks to parties of MEAs only. Second, there is concern that previous EC proposals to reverse the burden of proof in environment-related disputes have re-surfaced.
Other Members raised a number of questions regarding what precisely is covered by the Doha mandate. For instance, one delegation asked whether decisions made by Conferences of the Parties to MEAs should be encompassed. Chair Yolande Biké (Gabon) indicated that she would continue consultations under this item.
Discussions on para. 31(ii) were not as focused as those under 31(i), as there was no paper to stimulate talks and countries did not have well-developed positions. The US and Canada said that there could be potential for an ‘early harvest’ on this item, since its main focus of procedures for information exchange between WTO Committees and MEA secretariats is viewed to be one of the less contentious issues on the mandate. On the related issue of criteria for observer status, however, Malaysia and India have expressed their view that this is a systemic question, and should therefore be addressed by the General Council. According to sources, developed countries would prefer to grant observer status to MEA secretariats for the CTE special sessions in order to allow them to contribute substantively. As other negotiating Committees are also running into this divide, this issue will be taken up in the next meeting of the General Council and/or Trade Negotiations Committee.
On para. 31(iii), most Members see the CTE as playing primarily a monitoring role, as negotiations on environmental goods and services have been allocated to the Negotiating Committee on Market Access and the special sessions on Services, respectively. While a list of environmental services already exists under Services, sources indicate that a list of what qualifies as an environmental good is likely to be left with Market Access.
The regular CTE agreed to hold three meetings in 2002, back-to-back with the CTE special sessions. The next meetings will be on 13-14 June (focusing on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights issues) and 8-9 October (focusing on eco-labelling). Members expressed their support for a scheduled information session with MEA secretariats on 13 June on technical assistance and capacity building. Expected participants include the UNEP Executive Secretary and the heads of the following six MEAs: the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES); the Basel Convention; the Montreal Protocol; the Convention on Biological Diversity; the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change; and UNEP Chemicals (PIC and POPs Conventions).
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