Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 8 • Number 42 • 8th December 2004

EC And Complainants Request Delay In Sugar Appeal


SUPACHAI REPORTS ON DEVELOPMENTAL ASPECTS OF COTTON

In a 3 December report to the General Council, WTO Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi, highlighted the work of a ‘consultative framework’ — comprising the proponents of the cotton initiative (Benin, Burkina-Faso, Chad and Mali), bilateral donors, and relevant multilateral and regional agencies — in addressing the developmental ramifications of trade-related cotton issues. The July Package (WT/L/579) reaffirmed that the developmental aspects of cotton were complementary to the trade dimension, and instructed the WTO Secretariat to continue to work with the development community as well as to periodically report to the General Council on relevant developments.

This is the Director-General’s first such report to the General Council. It noted that bilateral donor Members and the multilateral and regional agencies (such as the World Bank and the African Development Bank) have quickly introduced cotton-sector priorities into their programmes.

The WTO, bilateral donors, and other trade, economic and development organisations previously called attention to the development aspects of cotton in an ‘African Regional Workshop on Cotton’, held in Benin from the 23-24 March 2004 (see BRIDGES Weekly, 31 March 2004). The trade related aspects of cotton are being addressed within the ongoing agriculture negotiations at the WTO. Within this context, a subcommittee on cotton was recently established to focus on this dimension as mandated in the July Package (see BRIDGES Weekly, 24 November 2004).

The Director-General’s report, WT/GC/83, is available at http://docsonline.wto.org

ICTSD reporting.

In a joint request on 2 December, Australia, Thailand, Brazil (the complainants) and the European Communities (EC - the defendant) asked the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body to consider a ‘Procedural Agreement’ that they had reached in the dispute on sugar subsidies, for which a WTO panel recently ruled in favour of the complainants (see BRIDGES Weekly, 20 October 2004). The parties have agreed that the usual 60 day time-period for appeals to be filed following the circulation of a panel report under the WTO rules for dispute settlement — the Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes (DSU) — should be extended until 13 January 2005, when the EC will file its notice of appeal. According to the parties’ request, the reason for this is "to take account of the end of year period and to avoid inconveniencing the appeal procedure."

The ‘Procedural Agreement,’ referenced as WT/DS265/24, WT/DS266/24 and WT/DS283/5 is available at http://docsonline.wto.org

ICTSD reporting.