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CTE Still Struggling With MEA Observer Question
On 13-14 June, the WTO Committee on Trade and Environment (CTE) held its second session for 2002, including an information session with multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). Focusing on the CTE mandate from the Doha Declaration, Members addressed a wide variety of submissions on areas ranging from the MEA-WTO relationship, capacity building and environmental reviews to…
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'Development' At WTO Endeavours To Meet Its Deadline
The body tasked by WTO Members to review the special and differential treatment (S&D) provisions in the WTO agreements — which make up the core of ‘development’ at the WTO — met informally on 10 June and formally on 14 June. The 10 June informal special session of the Committee on Trade and Development (CTD)…
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Food Summit: NGOs Stress Primacy Of Food Sovereignty Over Trade
Described by one press source as a "low-impact conference", the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) World Food Summit: five years later (10-13 June, Rome, Italy) ended last week with deep divisions over how to achieve the goal set at the 1996 Food Summit of halving the number of hungry people by 2015. In their…
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Climate Change Round-Up
Australia won’t ratify Kyoto; Canada feels the heat Australian Prime Minister John Howard signalled to the world on 5 June that Australia would not ratify the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), saying it was "not in Australia’s interests" to do so. The reasoning behind the decision, he said, was that…
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Note to Subscribers
Due to repeated technical difficulties with our former listserv provider, we have moved distribution of BRIDGES Weekly Trade News Digest ‘in-house’. As a result, this issue of BRIDGES Weekly was pushed back to Thursday. The new system, which will be in full operation later in the year, will provide greater functionality to our users, as…
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Stuart Harbinson Appointed WTO Chief Of Staff
Mr. Stuart Harbinson (Permanent Representative of Hong Kong) and current Chair of the WTO special sessions of negotiations on agriculture, has been appointed as Director of the office of the WTO Director-General by incoming WTO Director-General, Supachai Panitchpakdi. This move will make Harbinson the Chef de Cabinet, or Chief of Staff, and Supachai’s chief advisor…
- In Brief
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In Brief
EU FOREIGN MINISTERS ENDORSE MANDATE ON ACP NEGOTIATIONS On 17 June, EU Foreign Ministers endorsed a mandate for the European Commission to negotiate reciprocal, WTO-compliant ‘Economic Partnership Agreements’ with 76 countries of the ACP (Africa, Caribbean, Pacific) (see BRIDGES Weekly, 9 April 2002). The negotiations, coming under the Cotonou Agreement (see BRIDGES Weekly, 27 June…
- WTO in Brief
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WTO In Brief
INCOMING WTO D-G SUPACHAI WANTS CODE OF CONDUCT FOR MULTINATIONALS Incoming WTO Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi rattled many governments and international companies when he called on 8 June for a ‘new code of conduct’ for multinationals to clamp down their lobbying attempts aimed at influencing the multilateral trading system. The keynote speaker at the World Development Movement’s…
- 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. Coming Up This Week: 18-25 June 17-21 June, Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe: 9TH BIENNAL CONFERENCE OF THE IASCP - THE COMMONS IN AN AGE OF GLOBALISATION. The conference theme is addressed from…
- 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 for review by the BRIDGES staff to Hugo Cameron, hcameron@ictsd.ch. Submissions of publications to ICTSD’s documentation centre would also be welcome (contact Matteo Rizzolli, mrizzolli@ictsd.ch). OWNERSHIP…