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ENVIRONMENT @ HONG KONG: MOMENTUM ON FISH, LITTLE PROGRESS OTHERWISE
ENVIRONMENT @ HONG KONG: MOMENTUM ON FISH, LITTLE PROGRESS OTHERWISE Environment-related negotiations clearly took a backseat vis-à-vis the main negotiating priorities in at the Hong Kong Ministerial Conference on 13-18 December in Hong Kong (see In Brief, this issue). Nevertheless, environment-related discussions cropped up in a number of informal, green room and plenary discussions, as well…
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COMMENTARY ON THE WTO MINISTERIAL MEETING
COMMENTARY ON THE WTO MINISTERIAL MEETING By Doeke Eisma, Chairman, and Pieter van der Gaag, Project Leader Policy Coherence, IUCN National Committee of the Netherlands The preamble of the WTO agreement puts sustainable development at the heart of the organisation. So how well did the WTO Members do at the Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong? Based…
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GMO UPDATE: WTO BIOTECH CASE, ISAAA, EU, APEC
GMO UPDATE: WTO BIOTECH CASE, ISAAA, EU, APEC WTO Biotech Case Panel Report Delayed Again The Chair of the WTO dispute panel considering the case brought by the US, Canada and Argentina against the alleged EU moratorium on the approval of new biotech products announced on 3 January that the panel would not distribute its interim…
- In Brief
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Hong Kong Ministerial Adopts Declaration, Talks to Continue
WTO Members meeting for the Sixth Ministerial Conference on 13-18 December in Hong Kong were able to agree on a Ministerial Declaration that, while making some marginal progress, was in line with the low expectations for the Conference. In the Declaration, WTO Members agreed, among other things, to eliminate agricultural export subsidies by 2013 and…
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CITES Stops Trade in Wild Caviar to Save Sturgeon
Legal trade in wild sturgeon caviar between the Parties to the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) was suspended on 3 January owing to concerns over the impact of trade in the species on its survival. The CITES Secretariat’s decision to stop issuing the certificates required by…
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Greenpeace: WTO "Chills" Measures to Conserve Forests
Plans to liberalise trade in forest products as part of WTO non-agricultural market access (NAMA) negotiations need to be abandoned, Greenpeace demanded in a new report released on 11 December. “Trading Away Our Last Ancient Forests: The Threats to Forests from Trade Liberalisation Under the WTO”, a 2005 update to a 2001 paper, concludes that…
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Modest Cuts to EU Fish Quotas Enough to Save Cod?
EU ministers on 22 December agreed after relatively smooth talks to cut catch quotas for cod by 15 percent and to reduce the days of fishing at sea by 3 percent in 2006. While the 15 percent decrease in cod quota corresponds to the European Commission’s original proposal, reductions in fishing quotas for other species…
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Governments Speed Up Phase-Out of Ozone-Depleting Substances
During the seventeenth Meeting of the Parties (MOP) of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer held in Dakar from 12-16 December 2005, the 189 Parties reached agreement on a wide range of issues such as the elimination of remaining ozone-depleting substances (ODS) in developed countries, support of continued phase-out in developing…
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EU-Cape Verde Fisheries Agreement Signed
The European Commission on 21 December announced the signing of a new five-year fisheries partnership agreement (FPA) between the EU and Cape Verde that will in September 2006 replace the previous agreement that ended last June. Under the agreement, the quantity of fishing access for the European fishing fleet to Cape Verde’s tuna stocks will…
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Six Nations Count on Technology to Fix the Climate
During the inaugural meeting of the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate in Sydney on 11 and 12 January, the United States, China, Japan, India, South Korea and Australia launched a multi-million dollar fund to promote clean energy technologies, adopted a charter and established a work plan. The six signatories of the Asia-Pacific Partnership,…
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State of the World Report 2006 Puts Spotlight on China and India
The impact of China and India as major consumers of resources and polluters of local and global ecosystems form the focus of the Worldwatch Institute’s State of the World Report 2005. While the threats stemming from the dramatic economic rise of the two countries to the survival of the planet are laid out in detail,…
- Events
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Events
For a more comprehensive list of events in trade and sustainable development, please refer to ICTSD’s web calendar. Please bear in mind that dates and times of WTO meetings are often changed, and that the WTO does not always announce the important informal meetings of the different bodies. Coming up in the next two weeks 23 January,…
- Resources
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Resources
If you have a relevant resource (books, papers, bulletins, etc.) you would like to see announced in this section, please forward a copy or review by the BRIDGES staff to Sarah Mohan. ICTSD Resource AGRICULTURAL COMMODITIES, TRADE AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT. By Thomas Lines (International Institute on Environment and Development (IIED) and ICTSD, December 2005). The crisis in…