Archive

The Appellate Body, on 13 April 2006, issued its report regarding thecompliance panel report in the case 'United States-Investigation of the International Trade Commission in Softwood Lumber from Canada'.

The World Development Movement (WDM) today welcomed criticism by the House of Commons International Development Committee (IDC) of the UK's Presidency of the EU on trade issues and called for the collapse of talks at the WTO.

Link to a new paper from Jacques Berthelot calculating the extent of EU dumping of meat.

In early April 2006, Ambassador Crawford Falconer, chairperson of the agriculture negotiations, circulated a set of reference papers for the last week of agriculture negotiations before the 30 April deadline for 'modalities'.

Oxfam has abandoned its support for the current talks on a new trade deal, saying Europe and the US have failed to live up to their promises to use trade to cut poverty in the world's poorest countries.

Director-General Pascal Lamy told journalists on 24 April 2006 that 'we may have missed the deadline but we are not in deadlock'. Earlier, in a statement at an informal meeting of heads of delegations, he said that 'genuine and important progress has been made, but not fast enough to allow us to reach agreement on modalities by the end of the month'.

In a move that has upset many developing countries, the European Union and Japan have recently proposed new treaties in the WTO to prevent or restrict the use by WTO members of export taxes and export restrictions.

The four new simulation exercises by Esther Busser from the ICFTU on India, Indonesia, Philippines and Mexico.

The WTO's agriculture negotiations this week have focused so far on issues relating to the export competition pillar, specifically on food aid, state trading enterprises and export credits.

The World Trade Organisation Monday finally made the conclusion that the deadlines for reaching 'modalities' for agriculture and non-agricultural market access by the end of this month could not be met, and that a planned meeting of some 30 Ministers would be called off.