After Switzerland banned flights from Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa, the World Trade Organization had to postpone the 12th Ministerial Conference that was due to start Nov. 30. A news release from Nov. 26 quoted Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala saying that the travel restrictions would have put delegations from Southern Africa at a disadvantage. "She pointed out that many delegations have long maintained that meeting virtually does not offer the kind of interaction necessary for holding complex negotiations on politically sensitive issues," the release said.
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Turkmenistan officially submitted an application to join the World Trade Organization, the WTO said Nov. 24. The Central Asian country requested that the application be considered at the upcoming 12th Ministerial Conference, to be held Nov. 30-Dec. 3. Atageldi Haljanov, Turkmenistan's ambassador to the United Nations, after meeting with WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said that the decision was backed by his country's president and "driven by Turkmenistan's strong desire to integrate into world trade and diversify its economy through WTO accession." The country set up a commission in 2013 to study the effects of WTO membership. Turkmenistan would be the last former Soviet republic to join the WTO. The release said Turkmenistan's natural resources include oil and natural gas.
Gloria Abraham Peralta of Costa Rica, the chair of the World Trade Organization's agriculture negotiations, sent out a revised negotiation text ahead of the Nov. 30-Dec. 3 12th Ministerial Conference, the WTO said. The revised text was circulated as part of the chair's report to the WTO's General Council Nov. 23. The new document represents a "less ambitious version" of the negotiating outcomes, the chair said, but is intended to give members as much guidance as possible for MC12. “If members can continue to demonstrate commitment, goodwill and flexibility, a successful Ministerial Conference is within reach,” Peralta said. The revised text will be presented to all WTO members at the Nov. 25 meeting of the Committee on Agriculture in Special Session.
The top Republicans on the Senate Finance and the House Ways and Means committees asked U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to "start a concrete conversation about which reforms" would address the U.S. concerns about the World Trade Organization's appellate body, so that binding dispute reform can return to Geneva. They also said that the Nov. 30-Dec. 3 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) could be an opportunity to end the paralysis at the WTO.
The World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund launched a new database on the cross-border flow of COVID-19 vaccines. The COVID-19 Vaccine Trade Tracker provides data on "total vaccine supply to date, exports by producing economy and by supply arrangement type, imports by income group and by continent, supply by manufacturing economy and vaccine type, supply to continents and vaccination status," the WTO said Nov. 22.
Nonprofits, such as Amnesty International, Public Citizen, Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam and Greenpeace, joined by the majority of House Democrats and 10 senators, are urging the Biden administration to push for an intellectual property waiver in the World Trade Organization for "COVID-19 vaccines, treatments and diagnostic tests."
Trade associations and industry groups urged World Trade Organization members to extend the moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions. In a "Global Industry Statement," ahead of the Nov. 30-Dec. 3 12th Ministerial Conference, 73 groups said that allowing the moratorium to expire would amount to a "historic setback for the WTO," due to its role in allowing the digital economy to grow. The groups urged an extension until the next conference. The moratorium is key to the COVID-19 recovery, as the cross-border exchange of knowledge, COVID technical expertise, and scientific and commercial information across transnational IT networks, "as well as access to digital tools and global market opportunities have helped sustain economies, expand education, and raise global living standards," the statement said.
The World Trade Organization published the agenda for the next meeting of the Dispute Settlement Body, set for Nov. 29. The agenda includes status reports by the U.S. on the implementation of recommendations adopted by the DSB on: antidumping measures on certain hot-rolled steel products from Japan; antidumping and countervailing measures on large residential washers from South Korea; certain methodologies and their application to antidumping proceedings involving China; and Section 110(5) of the U.S. Copyright Act. Other such status reports expected are from the European Union on measures affecting the approval and marketing of biotech products, and from Indonesia on horticultural products, animals and animal products. The EU is expected to make a statement about the implementation of DSB recommendations on the U.S.'s Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000; and the U.S., on the EU's measures affecting trade in large civil aircraft. Also, a long list of countries, excluding the U.S., made a proposal on appellate body appointments.
The World Trade Organization's Council for Trade-Related Aspects of IP Rights pledged to continue active discussions up until the 12th Ministerial Conference to find a common intellectual property response to COVID-19, the WTO said Nov. 18. MC12 will run Nov. 30-Dec. 3. The council members adopted the oral status report, which the TRIPS Council chair will submit to the General Council. The text gives an overview on TRIPS Council discussions in the past year on a proposal from India and South Africa and one from the European Union. The former seeks a waiver from certain TRIPS Agreement provisions for the "prevention, containment and treatment of COVID-19," while the latter wants a General Council declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health "in the circumstances of a pandemic." The WTO noted disagreements on whether the waiver or EU proposal is the most effective way to "address the shortage and inequitable distribution of, and access to, vaccines and other COVID-19-related products." The EU proposal also faces a fundamental query about whether its measures are effective enough to address vaccine distribution, the WTO said. The TRIPS Council will remain in session in pursuit of a solution ahead of MC12. It formally resumes Nov. 29. As the General Council meets Nov. 22-23, this means that the TRIPS Council will remain in session beyond the General Council and potentially all the way to the Ministerial Conference.
A World Trade Organization dispute panel found the U.S. violated WTO rules during investigations leading up to the imposition of countervailing duties on ripe olives from Spain. The panel found that the U.S. erred when finding that subsidies given to Spanish raw olive growers under the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy were specific to the olive growers, a finding that was inconsistent with measures in the WTO's Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures. The Court of International Trade independently came to the same conclusion. In June, the court said that the countervailing duties could not stand since they were not specific to Spanish olive growers (see 2106170075). The panel also said the Commerce Department's regulation permitting it to deem the full amount of subsidies taken in by raw olive growers to have passed through to the downstream producers lacks any real factual basis and is inconsistent with WTO rules. The panel did not find, however, that the antidumping duties on the same goods violated the trade body's rules. "The Commission's efforts to vigorously defend the interests and rights of EU producers, in this case growers of Spanish ripe olives, are now paying off," Valdis Dombrovskis, the EU's commissioner for trade, said. "The WTO has upheld our claims about anti-subsidy duties being unjustified and in violation of WTO rules. These duties severely hit Spanish olive producers, who saw their exports to the US fall dramatically as a result. We now expect the US to take the appropriate steps to implement the WTO ruling, so that exports of ripe olives from Spain to the US can resume under normal conditions.”