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20 December 2006
Concluding the Doha Round negotiations in 2007 is still possible, WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy told Members on 14 December, but only if countries come forward with concrete new concessions early in the new year. "New flexibilities have been announced by major players in general terms," he said...
20 December 2006
In a speech to WTO Members on aid for trade, Director-General Pascal Lamy highlighted the importance of monitoring and evaluation to ensuring that trade-related assistance efforts are effective. The aim was not to turn the WTO into a development agency, he said. Instead, he envisioned a scenario in...
20 December 2006
China this month marks the fifth anniversary of its accession to the WTO. On 11 December, five years to the day since it joined the global trade body, Beijing announced a regulation removing several restrictions on foreign ownership in its banking sector. This is one of the last pieces of the...
20 December 2006
Months after the Doha Round negotiations were suspended in July, WTO Members on 12 December restarted informal discussions on how to discipline fisheries subsidies. The largely technical debate focused on the possible role of external input, notably from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (...
20 December 2006
TRIPS, ACCESS TO MEDICINES AND DEVELOPING NATIONS: TOWARDS AN OPEN SOURCE SOLUTION. By Krishna Ravi Srinivas. Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore Working Paper 248, November 2006. The extent to which intellectual property rights (IPRs) facilitate or hinder the development of new drugs and...
20 December 2006
EU MEMBER STATES BACK AUSTRIAN BAN ON BIOTECH PRODUCTS In a resounding defeat for the European Commission, a large majority of EU member states on 18 December voted in support of Austria's right to ban two genetically modified maize varieties. While these crops have already been approved at the EU-...
20 December 2006
EVENTS For a more comprehensive list of events in trade and sustainable development, please refer to ICTSD's web calendar at: http://ictsd.iisd.org/cal/index.htm . If you would like to submit an event, please email events@ictsd.c...
20 December 2006
MEMBERS APPROVE TRANSPARENCY MECHANISM FOR FTAs In a rare instance of consensus in the troubled Doha Round negotiations, WTO Members voted on 14 December to endorse a new transparency mechanism for scrutinising each other's bilateral and regional free-trade agreements. They will now be required to...
15 December 2006
Following three years of negotiations, the European Parliament adopted a comprehensive law on the manufacturing, marketing, import and use of chemical substances on 13 December. Entitled REACH — Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals — the legislation aims to protect...
15 December 2006
Burkina Faso, a leading cotton producer in West Africa, recently announced that its farmers will be allowed to plant genetically modified (GM) cotton in the 2007 growing season. The country initiated field trials in 2003 with the support of the US Agency for International Development (USAID)...
15 December 2006
A team of experts have called for a programme of systematic risk research into the potential dangers of nanotechnology in consumer products. The team stated that while fears over nanotechnology’s risks may be exaggerated, they are not necessarily unfounded, and they merit further research...
15 December 2006
BASEL PARTIES DEBATE E-WASTE, PATCHWORK OF INTERNATIONAL CHEMICALS RULES Parties to the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal recently debated the difference between reusable electronic products and obsolete electronic waste with hazardous...
15 December 2006
CODEX TO LAUNCH NEW WORK ON SAFETY ASSESSMENT OF GM TRACES IN FOOD The Codex Ad Hoc Intergovernmental Task Force on Foods Derived from Biotechnology, at its meeting in Chiba, Japan, from 27 November to 1 December, agreed to a US proposal to undertake new work on developing guidance on safety...
15 December 2006
WTO FISH SUBSIDIES TALKS FOCUS ON ROLE OF FAO After several months of suspension following the collapse of the trade talks in July, countries on 12 December restarted discussions on how to discipline fisheries subsidies in the WTO, albeit in informal mode. The largely technical debate focused on...
15 December 2006
WIPO'S IGC AGREES NEW PARALLEL TRACK PROCEDURE TO ADDRESS TK, FOLKLORE Recent discussions on traditional knowledge (TK) and folklore at the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) led to a new approach to work in this area. As members did not converge around a single track, they agreed on a...
15 December 2006
If you have a relevant resource (books, papers, bulletins, etc.) you would like to see announced in this section, please forward a copy for review by the BRIDGES staff to Malena Sell . ICTSD Resources FISHERIES, INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: POLICY DISCUSSION PAPER. October 2006...
15 December 2006
For a more comprehensive list of events in trade and sustainable development, please refer to ICTSD's web calendar . Please bear in mind that dates and times of WTO meetings are often changed, and that the WTO does not always announce the important informal meetings of the different bodies. 14-16...
13 December 2006
Comparing the WTO Doha Round to a medical patient, Agriculture Chair Ambassador Crawford Falconer (New Zealand) indicated on 11 December that the negotiations seemed to be showing "signs of life," although it was possible that these amounted to little more than a minor "twitch." Falconer was...