RESTRICTEDWORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONG/TBT/W/74/Add.1
10 August 1998
(98-3153)
Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade Original:  English
TBT AGREEMENT CODE OF GOOD PRACTICE, PARAGRAPH J
PUBLICATION OF THE WORK PROGRAMMES OF
THE STANDARDIZING BODIES
Communication from the European Community
Addendum
1. The EC proposal on Paragraph J of the Code of Good Practice (Document G/TBT/W/74 of
30 June 1998) presented at the TBT Committee meeting of 1 July 1998 gave rise to questions from
several delegations regarding its practical implementation.  This note aims at clarifying the
EC proposal.
2. Firstly, the EC would like to make clear that its proposal does not aim at withdrawing the
current paper based publication system which obviously could continue to be used.  Thecommunication of the work programmes of the standardizing bodies via Internet would simply be
another  possibility to fulfil the paragraph J obligations by adapting to new technology.
3. In other words, standardizing bodies would be offered the choice of publishing their work
programmes either on paper or on an Internet web site.
4. With regard to the question of language to be used, the EC is of the opinion that the rules
(already foreseen in Paragraph J) should be the same whatever the medium, paper or electronic.
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