Following a discussion at the 15 February WTO General Council and subsequent consultations with Chairpersons of WTO bodies, WTO Deputy Director-General Miguel Rodriguez on 6 March issued the annual calendar of WTO meetings for 2002 to Member-country trade missions. According to Rodriguez's cover letter to Heads of Delegation, meetings have been programmed in compliance with the 1995 guidelines on the scheduling of meetings (WT/L/106, at http://docsonline.wto.org/gen_search.asp) and with the Trade Negotiations Committee practice and principles (TN/C/1), with the intent of avoiding more than one negotiating body meeting at the same time and more than two simultaneous formal meetings of WTO bodies. (See BRIDGES Weekly, 20 February 2002). Both formal and informal meetings are reflected in the plan. Trade sources indicate that while the schedule is a useful guide to when and how many meetings are being planned over the next year, changes continue to be made constantly as various constraints arise.

The first part of the calendar is available on ICTSD webiste at: March-July the second part at: August-December

ICTSD Internal Files.

DISPUTE SETTLEMENT: MEMBERS DISCUSS 'SEQUENCING' AND TIMEFRAME CONSTRAINTS

At a 14 March informal meeting, WTO Members convened for consultations on the reform of the WTO's dispute settlement mechanism, addressing issues such as "sequencing" and "carousel" retaliation. The talks are currently underway as the Doha Declaration mandates Members to carry out "negotiations on improvements and clarifications of the Dispute Settlement Understanding" (DSU) to be concluded by May 2003 (Doha Ministerial Declaration paragraph 30). Addressing the relationship of DSU Article 21.5 (compliance) and Article 22 (compensation and the suspension of concessions), the EC had submitted on 4 March a proposal suggesting WTO Members affirm in treaty language the need to obtain an Article 21.5 compliance ruling before seeking Article 22 authorisation to retaliate. The EC further said that parties in a dispute should be obliged to hold consultations on allegations of non-compliance before requesting an Article 21.5 ruling, and that Members should have the right to appeal against such a panel decision. So far, Members have tried to "sequence" the two tracks (Art. 21.5 and 22) through informal arrangements by resolving differences over compliance efforts prior to seeking authorisation to retaliate. Other Members such as Australia, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Japan, Pakistan, and South Korea all agreed that sequencing was a key issue and should be a central focus of the DSU reform talks. Furthermore, the US stated at the 14 March meeting that it was open to any proposals on this issue. Addressing the concept of "carousel" retaliation, which systematically changes the list of goods targeted for retaliation in trade disputes, Australia proposed that the list of goods subject to retaliation measures, as well as any subsequent changes to the list, should be approved by the WTO's Dispute Settlement Body. Australia further pointed to the fact that the tight timeframe for the negotiation under paragraph 30 would make amendments to the DSU very difficult, so that Members should rather focus on the "consolidation of agreed DSU practices" by the May 2003 deadline and negotiate formal amendments at a later stage. Members such as Chile and South Korea agreed that more comprehensive talks could be suspended until the Fifth WTO Ministerial in Mexico in mid-2003.

"WTO Members Highlight Sequencing Issue As Main Focus of Dispute Settlement Talks," WTO REPORTER, 15 March 2002.

WTO AND NGOS ADDRESS ASSESSMENT OF SERVICES TRADE

On 14-15 March, the WTO Secretariat organised a Symposium on Assessment of Trade in Services for WTO Members with presentations from the Secretariat, the World Bank, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the Organisation on Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Member delegations, and researchers from institutes such as the African Economic Research Consortium. Inter alia, the two-day event included sessions on services performance in developing countries and national experiences regarding trade in infrastructural services and economic efficiency. In a Norwegian contribution addressing the need, objectives and instruments for assessing the impacts of international trade agreements, Norway stated that "assuming that the ambitious goals [for WTO cooperation, including GATS] reflect equally high expectations of concrete results and considering the consequences of a gap between results and expectations, the assessment exercise seems reasonable." The documentation of the WTO symposium will soon be viewable at the WTO website http://www.wto.org. Prior to the WTO event, on 12 March, WWF International, the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), Public Services International (PSI) and the World Development Movement (WDM) jointly organised an NGO Meeting on GATS Assessment aimed at "ensur[ing] that assessment truly moves forward and provides developing countries with the necessary information to formulate their negotiating positions." Unlike the WTO symposium, the NGO meeting was open for trade negotiators, intergovernmental organisations, non- governmental organisations (NGOs) and academia. In the discussions, participants pointed out that it was important that the GATS assessment remained an integral part of the negotiating agenda, as it was a central tool for developing countries to determine whether the Uruguay Round had delivered the promised benefits, and whether further services liberalisation would benefit their societies and economies. Furthermore, discussion centred on issues such as foreign direct investment (FDI) policy, liberalisation of water services, and experiences in the tourism sector.

ICTSD Internal Files.