Archive - 2006 - Article

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.

Links to several documents that have been distributed in the recent agriculture negotiations.

Links to the recent communications on domestic regulation in the GATS negotiations.

The United States has called for a senior officials meeting of the Group-of-12 countries next week to review the state of progress in faltering Doha modalities negotiations, WTD was told (WTD, 5/5/06).

Link to the Chair's reference paper on Special Products.

India's Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath stressed on 25 April in Geneva that the current WTO talks must not violate cardinal development principles.

Several developing countries and their groupings presented their assessments of the state of the Doha negotiations as the WTO's Trade Negotiations Committee met on Monday 1 May.

The WTO's Trade Negotiations Committee meeting on 1 May and statements made by some Trade Ministers visiting the WTO have further clarified positions of some key members and groupings and some of the major differences among them that need to be resolved if the Doha talks are to progress fast enough.

Link to the U.S. proposal on Special Products (SPs).

The all-party International Development Committee of the United Kingdom Parliament has issued a report on 27 April containing devastating criticisms of the European Union's positions in the current WTO negotiations.