Bridges Trade BioRes

Volume 1 • Number 2 6th December 2001

  • Geographical Indications Hotly Debated In The Wake Of Doha
    Geographical Indications Hotly Debated In The Wake Of Doha The question whether negotiations on the extension of geographical indications (GIs) were officially launched at the Fourth WTO Ministerial meeting in Doha has emerged as one of the most controversial issues in the wake of the Conference. This and other issues related to GIs were also…
  • WTO Agriculture Committee Discusses Environment
    WTO Agriculture Committee Discusses Environment For the last time this year, Members convened in the WTO Committee on Agriculture for an informal negotiating session on 3-4 December to discuss, inter alia, the relationship between environment and domestic farm support. The debate principally focused on whether some degree of trade distortion is legitimate in cases…
  • China-US GMO Deal; Mexican Maize; OECD Conference
    China-US GMO Deal; Mexican Maize; OECD Conference China Endorses GMO Deal With US In a letter dated 26 November, the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture formally endorsed a deal reached in October with the US regarding China’s regulations on imports of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), according to the office of the US Trade Representative (USTR). The…
  • New Study Reveals Underreporting Of Fish Catch Decline
    New Study Reveals Underreporting Of Fish Catch Decline Contrary to statistics by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), a new study, published in the 29 November edition of the science journal Nature, shows that fish catches have actually been declining by 800 million pounds since the late ’80s rather than increasing by 700 million…
  • US Supreme Court Decision On Plant Patent Possible In Early 2002
    US Supreme Court Decision On Plant Patent Possible In Early 2002 Since 1985, more than 1,800 patents issued in the US include claims to plants, seeds, or plant parts or tissues, of which 1,300 explicitly claim a plant seed. It would appear then that patent claims directed to sexually reproduced plants are here to stay.…
  • Asia-Pacific Regional Prep Meeting Adopts Platform On Sustainable Development
    Asia-Pacific Regional Prep Meeting Adopts Platform On Sustainable Development In what some described as perhaps the best outcome yet of the five regional preparatory meetings for the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), government officials at the High-level Asia-Pacific Regional Meeting in Phnom Penh, Cambodia (27-29 November) adopted the "Platform on Sustainable Development for Asia…
  • In Brief
  • In Brief
    US CONGRESS PASSES FAST TRACK BILL. By a margin of just one vote, US Congress on 6 December passed the trade promotion authority (TPA) bill — formerly known as ‘fast-track’ — which would allow the US President to negotiate trade agreements that Congress can only accept or reject, but not amend. "I commend the House…
  • Events
  • Events
    For a more comprehensive list of events in trade and sustainable development, please refer to ICTSD’s web calendar. An updated list of forthcoming WTO meetings is posted on the WTO web site. Please bear in mind that dates and times of WTO meetings are often changed, and that the WTO does not always announce the…
  • Resources
  • Resources
    If you have a relevant resource (books, papers, bulletins, etc.) you would like to see announced in this section, please forward a copy for review by the BRIDGES staff to hbaumuller@ictsd.ch. Submissions of publications to ICTSD’s documentation centre would also be welcome (contact mgalvin@ictsd.ch). WORLD MARKETS FOR ORGANIC FRUIT AND VEGETABLES. Published by the UN Food…