Archive - May 2006 - Article

'Policy space', an issue that featured most prominently at the UNCTAD eleventh session in Sao Paulo in 2004, has re-emerged as a burning issue at the UNCTAD Mid-Term Review (MTR) meeting held here this week.

Many developing countries and their groupings have declared at a WTO services meeting on new disciplines on domestic regulation that there is no need to establish rules based on a 'necessity test', and that the rules should adequately recognize the developing countries' right to regulate their services.

A week-long meeting of the 2006 Mid-Term Review (MTR) of UNCTAD XI started Monday with key delegations and groupings giving their initial positions on the mandate and future role of UNCTAD, including in light of the current United Nations reform process.

COSATU writes to bring to your attention the disaster awaiting ourcountry, South Africa, and the rest of the countries in the South or the developing nations. As you are aware the World Trade Organisation is negotiating a detailed agreement based on the very unfavourable and anti development framework negotiated in the Hong Kong WTO Ministerial Conference in December 2005.

This compilation of forty-five case studies documents disparate experiences among economies in addressing the challenges of participating in the WTO. It demonstrates that success or failure is strongly influenced by how governments and private-sector stakeholders organize themselves at home. The contributors, mainly from developing countries, give examples of participation with lessons for others.

G33 Comments on the Chairman's Reference Paper on Special Products, that details concerns regarding the paper's lack of elucidation of the G33 and developmental perspective, and introduction of non-mandated criteria for the self-designation of SPs and the determination of the appropriate number of tariff lines.

A Joint Manifesto or the G33, Africa Group, ACP, and LDC Groups, representing the majority of the members of the 150-member WTO declaring their full support for SP and SSM mandated by the Hong Kong Declaration, and that no deal is possible that treats SP and SSM from a purely market access or commercial perspective, or that detracts or derogates the developmental value and dimension of SP and SSM in this DDA Round to the millions or resource-poor farmers all around the world who will be dependent on SPs and the SSM to assure their food security, livelihood security and rural development concerns.

The United States yesterday slapped down a recent ruling by the World Trade Organization Appellate Body over the US use of 'zeroing' in making antidumping judgements - declaring the implications of the ruling as well as the analytical route adopted by the appeals panel were very 'troubling' (WTD, 4/19/06).

The United States 'along with the European Union, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore and Switzerland' yesterday proposed a tariff-free sectoral initiative in the Doha Development Agenda industrials negotiations on environmental goods (WTD, 5/9/06).

WTO negotiations in agriculture have reached a near-crisis over the issues of Special Products (SP) and Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM), with developing countries that have championed these concepts being in a state of fury at what they see as attempts by the United States and some other exporting countries to undermine agreement on and use of these two instruments.