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TRIPS Council Discussions Fall Apart Over Enforcement Issue
The WTO Council for Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) met on 25-26 October for the first time since the collapse of the Doha Round without making substantive progress in the ongoing discussions. The special (negotiating) session of the TRIPS Council remains suspended. The issue of enforcement proved especially controversial. In particular developing countries opposed…
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Agriculture: Lack Of Transparency Attributed To Late WTO Notifications
Extensive delays in Members’ notifications of their farm subsidies and tariffs are undermining the WTO’s ability to promote transparency and are creating obstacles to progress in the negotiations themselves, according to Christian Häberli (Switzerland), Chair of the WTO Committee on Agriculture (CoA). While the Doha round negotiating meetings remain suspended due largely to Members’…
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East African Community Review Calls For Improving Multilateral Commitments
The WTO Secretariat’s Trade Policy Review of the East African Community (EAC) lauds the continuing economic reform programme in the EAC. At the same time, the Review calls on the customs union — comprising Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda — to improve its members’ multilateral commitments on both goods and services in an effort to increase…
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WTO Scrutinises China's Trade Policies
For the fifth time, WTO Members scrutinised China’s industrial subsidies and intellectual property rights protection last week under the annual transitional review mechanism established in the country’s accession agreement. China claimed it had faithfully fulfilled its commitments, but admitted that difficulties in the collection of data made it impossible to answer some of the questions…
- In Brief
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US-Korea FTA Talks Begin To Make Progress
The fourth round of US-South Korea free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations ended in Jeju, South Korea, on 27 October. Although the two countries made progress towards reaching an agreement, the talks have proceeded more slowly than expected (see BRIDGES Weekly, 25 October 2006), necessitating a sixth round of negotiations in January 2006 in addition to…
- WTO in Brief
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WTO In Brief
VIETNAM COMPLETES WTO ACCESSION NEGOTIATIONS Following twelve years of negotiations, the WTO Working Party on the Accession of Vietnam finalised and approved the country’s membership on 26 October. The WTO General Council is expected to convene in a special meeting on 7 November to formalise the deal, just days before Hanoi hosts the annual summit of…
- Events
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Events
EVENTS For a more comprehensive list of events in trade and sustainable development, please refer to ICTSD’s web calendar at: http://www.ictsd.org/cal/index.htm. If you would like to submit an event, please email events@ictsd.ch. ICTSD 2-3 November, Mombasa, Kenya: AFRICA DIALOGUE ON WTO DISPUTE SETTLEMENT AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT. Organised in collaboration with the…
- Resources
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Resources
AID FOR TRADE INITIATIVE IN NEED OF A DEFINITIVE STRUCTURE. By Samuel G. Asfaha, South Centre, October 2006. This article posits that as the ‘Aid for Trade (AFT)’ initiative of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) gathers steam, there are some essential next steps that need to be taken. It argues that the initiative can only…