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AG Chair Preparing To Revise Text, As Lamy Says 'Hour of Truth Rapidly Approaching'
The chair of the troubled Doha Round agriculture talks has given Member governments until 2 November to iron out their differences. After that, he will put together a detailed new potential draft deal for make-or-break final negotiations, guessing where consensus might lie on issues for which negotiators fail to point the way to compromise. "We’re moving…
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European Parliament Ratifies Trips Amendment
The European Parliament on 24 October endorsed an amendment to WTO intellectual property rules aimed at easing poor countries’ access to essential medicines, after the EU’s 27 member governments promised to help developing nations manufacture and import affordable drugs. Legislators from across the political spectrum had thrice postponed voting on the amendment, pending additional pledges…
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NAMA Talks Remain Divided, With Time Running Out
WTO Members are showing few signs of narrowing their differences on manufacturing tariff cuts, the chair of the contentious talks said on 22 October, warning that the Doha Round would fail if they could not reach an agreement by the end of the year. Canadian Ambassador Don Stephenson, who chairs the negotiations on non-agricultural market access,…
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Fisheries Negotiating Text Due Soon, Says Chair
The chair of the Doha Round negotiations on rules governing fisheries subsidy spending has said that he is ready to issue a draft agreement text to serve as the basis for future discussions, though this would depend to some extent on the agriculture and industrial goods talks. Chair Ambassador Guillermo Valles Games (Uruguay) closed four days…
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AG Negotiators Haggle Over Base Periods For Green Box Payments
The mediator of the struggling Doha Round farm trade talks says that Members are at long last moving forward, albeit incrementally. However, the movement has been on ‘technical’ issues rather than the big ‘political’ questions, such as subsidy spending caps, which negotiators say can only be resolved at the ministerial level. Even on these technical issues,…
- WTO in Brief
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WTO In Brief
EGYPTIAN ANTI-DUMPING PROPOSAL UNDER FIRE BECAUSE OF ‘ZEROING’ An Egyptian proposal to reform WTO rules for anti-dumping investigations has raised the ire of several countries, which argue that it would open the door to legalising a controversial duty calculation practice known as ‘zeroing’. The WTO allows Member goverments to place extra duties on goods exported at a…
- 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 at: http://www.ictsd.org/cal/index.htm. If you would like to submit an event, please email events@ictsd.ch. Coming Up: 25-31 October 26 October, Manila, Philippines. INEQUALITY AND GROWTH. The seminar will provide updated cross-country evidence on the relationship between income…
- Resources
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Resources
PROCESS MATTERS: SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND DOMESTIC TRADE TRANSPARENCY. Edited by Mark Halle and Robert Wolfe. International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2007. Broad public education and focused solicitation of information from economic actors contribute to a trade policy that will be both legitimate and effective. This book contributes to a growing literature on the national trade…