Archive - 2005

A four-point proposal to establish a

On 20 April at 3:00 pm, the INCD will hold a seminar at WTO headquarters in Geneva to discuss the cultural implications of the General Agreement on Trade in Services and the potential implications for trade rules of the new UNESCO Convention.

Most industrialised nations resist opening their agricultural markets, seeking to maintain their subsidies for protecting farmers. They spend a combined total of approximately a billion dollars a day on such state supports.

Ministers and senior trade officials from seven Asian economies have agreed that they should aim for a preliminary accord on non-farm trade liberalisation by the end of July under the World Trade Organization.

Shoichi Nakagawa, Japan's trade minister, yesterday pledged to push ahead with informal meetings with other World Trade Organisation members ahead of the next official round of trade talks in December.

World Trade Organization members are inching closer to a preliminary free trade agreement ahead of the body's December ministerial meeting in Hong Kong.

Update on events surrounding the G20 Ministerial Conference (18-19 March 2005) in New Delhi.

Latest news from the Carribean Regional Negotrating Machinery

On April 7, the WTO Appellate Body published its decision on the US-Gambling case. In November, 2004 a panel had largely ruled in favour of a complaint by Antigua-Barbuda that US federal and state laws prohibiting cross-border gambling violated US commitments under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).

The World Trade Organization's Appellate Body yesterday (April 7) upheld a 2004 panel ruling that the U.S. had agreed to allow cross-border gambling services under its Uruguay Round services commitments, a decision that could lead to future challenges of U.S. regulations on gambling.