BRIDGES Weekly Trade News Digest

Lead Stories
WIPO MEMBERS AGREE ON DEVELOPMENT AGENDA	Members of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) last week reached an agreement on recommendations for reforms aimed at ensuring that development concerns are placed at the heart of the work of the UN agency. In the fourth and final session of the committee dealing with the 'development agenda' talks, held in Geneva from 11-15 June, representatives from over 100 governments successfully negotiated a series of proposals to forward to the 2007 General Assembly, WIPO's top decision-making body. They also agreed to create a new Committee on Development and Intellectual Property.
G-4 MEETING UNDERWAY IN POTSDAM; OTHER MEMBERS AWAIT CONVERGENCE, CHAIRS' TEXTS	Trade ministers from the EU, Brazil, India, and the US have kicked off a new attempt to resolve their differences in the deadlocked Doha Round negotiations in order to bolster chances of salvaging a multilateral agreement by the end of the year. Talks among the so-called G-4 got underway in Potsdam near Berlin on 19 June. They are scheduled to continue through 23 June; an additional day has been budgeted for in case officials want to keep bargaining.
BRAZIL LOSES RETREADED TYRES DISPUTE, BUT HAPPY WITH PANEL'S MIXED RULING	Brazil has lost a WTO challenge against its import restrictions on retreaded tyres. The EU had contended that the import limitations were motivated by a desire to protect the local tyre industry rather than to pursue genuine public health objectives. The dispute settlement panel's report, released on 12 June, confirmed a confidential interim ruling. Despite the panel's call for it to change its policies, the Brazilian government welcomed the decision.
MEMBERS CLASH OVER HOW TO DISCIPLINE FISHERIES SUBSIDIES	Members clashed over the shape of future WTO rules on fisheries subsidy spending during a 14 June meeting of the Negotiating Group on Rules. In particular, a new proposal from Japan, Korea, and Taiwan was criticised by countries that argued that far broader restrictions on subsidy payments would be necessary in order to counteract the rapid depletion of marine fish stocks. Delegates had a similarly mixed reaction to a new paper from the African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) states focussing on access fees and the industry's economic impact in the developing world.
DOHA ENVIRONMENT NEGOTIATIONS MOVE SLOWLY, HINGING ON PROGRESS ELSEWHERE	With their eyes on the ongoing push for a breakthrough in the Doha Round talks, WTO delegates met to discuss the trade and environment negotiations from 11-12 June. Progress has been slow in talks on expedited trade liberalisation for environmental goods and services, as well as the relationship between multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) and the WTO. However, this is expected to change if Members manage to break the current deadlock on trade in agricultural and industrial goods, setting the stage for a conclusion of the round by early next year.

In Brief	WTO in Brief
Andean Nations Reach Compromise on Trade Negotiations with EU CITES: Commercially Valuable Species in the Balancee	Services Negotiators Inch Forward While Waiting For Ag, NAMA

Events        &        Resources
Events	25-26 June, London, UK. CLIMATE CHANGE: POLITICS VERSUS ECONOMICS. Climate change is global, both in cause and consequence, and the response requires international action. Yet environmentalists, scientists, economists, foreign policy and security experts and investors all speak different languages and have different understandings of how best to tackle the issue. The aim of this conference, hosted by Chatham House, is to bring together well-respected representatives from each of these fields to discuss the connections and to debate whether it is international politics or economics or a mixture of both that will deliver a measurable progress in the global response to climate change. For information on the conference contact conferences@chathamhouse.org.uk.
Resources	WORLD TARIFF PROFILES. By the World Trade Organisation, the UN Conference on Trade and Development, and the International Trade Centre, June 2007. Numbers play a fundamental role in key areas of trade negotiations; perhaps more than in any previous multilateral round of talks, tariffs and formulas are at the core of the Doha negotiations. Up to now, access to these data was often limited to a closed circle of trade specialists. The present publication attempts to fill that gap by offering a comprehensive picture of tariff profiles of the 150 WTO Members in an abridged format. The full publication is available at http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/tariffs_e/tariff_profiles_2006_e/tariff_profiles_2006_e.pdf.
BRIDGES Weekly Trade News Digest is made possible through the generous support of the Government of the United Kingdom (DFID) and ICTSD's core donors including the Governments of Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden; Christian Aid (UK) and NOVIB (NL). BRIDGES Weekly also benefits from support for the BRIDGES series of publications from donors including the Rockefeller Foundation and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.