. /.  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  TN/CTD/9 
19 April 2004  
 
(04-1754) 
Committee on Trade and Development 
Special Session  
 
 
SPECIAL SESSION OF THE COMMITTEE ON  
TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT 
 
Report by the Chairman, Mr. Faizel Ismail (South Africa),  
to the Trade Negotiations Committee  
 I. INTRODUCTION 
1. The Special Session of the Committee on Trade and Development (CTD) was directed to 
carry out "the review of all special and differentia l treatment provisions with a view to strengthening 
them and making them more precise, effective a nd operational" as mandated in paragraph 44 of the 
Ministerial Declaration".  Paragraph 12.1 of the Decision on Implementation-Related Issues and 
Concerns also directed Members "to identify those special and differential treatment provisions that 
are already mandatory in nature and those that ar e non-binding in character, to consider the legal and 
practical implications" of doing so. 
II. STATUS OF WORK 
2. In pursuance of this Work Programme and during the run up to the Fifth Ministerial 
Conference Members had agreed to make recommendations for possible adoption by Ministers of a 
number of Agreement-specific proposals.  Accordi ngly, Annex C to the draft ministerial text 
contained 24 recommendations by Members for specific action on 25 agreement-specific proposals.  This progress was reflected in paragraph 11 of the re vised draft ministerial text sent to Cancún, which 
provided for the adoption of the decisions in Annex C of  that text.  It also provided for work on the 
proposals referred to negotiating or other WTO bodi es to be continued therein, under the close 
supervision of the General Council, and for work on the remaining agreement-specific proposals, as 
well as on all other outstanding issues, to be carried out in the CTD in Special Session.  A further three recommendations were included in Annex C at  Cancún.  However, like the draft Ministerial 
text, Annex C was also not adopted at Cancún.  As  a result the package of the 28 Agreement-specific 
proposals on which there is an in-principle agreement, are yet to be adopted. 
3. After the Ministerial Meeting, the status of  the Work Programme on Special and Differential 
Treatment (S&D) was put on hold mainly because as agreed to by Members, the initial consultations 
had focussed on four issues namely, Agriculture, Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA), Cotton 
and the Singapore Issues.  Once the election of the Chairpersons of the different negotiating groups 
had been finalised, a formal meeting of the Special Session was held on 1 April 2004 mainly to discuss how to structure the future work.  During the course of the meeting it was suggested that in an 
attempt to take the Work Programme on S&D forw ard and to unlock the existing impasse it might be 
more useful to identify possible areas of convergen ce.  Accordingly, the following three questions 
have been put to Members: 
¾ What did Members wish to do with the proposal s on which they have already agreed to in 
principle; TN/CTD/9 
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¾ How can the current discussions on S&D be made more productive and; 
¾ What suggestions did Members have on the way forward so as to fulfil the Doha Mandate of 
making S&D more precise, e ffective and operational. 
4. Members have expressed broad support for th is approach. A number of them stressed the 
need to consider the link between trade and deve lopment and for the work on S&D to follow a more 
horizontal approach.  Members also feel that any possible package that may evolve by July should 
include a strong development component.  Some Members also expressed the importance of considering some of the underlying issues impacting on development as well as some of the horizontal issues which remain to be addressed, such as the incorporation of S&D into the architecture 
of WTO rules; the monitoring mechanism; the obj ectives and principles of S&D treatment; special 
needs of particular groups of countries such as the LDCs; and the erosion of preferences. 
III. FUTURE WORK 
5. During the coming months it is intended to explore the possible way forward and the 
broader issues of development related to these que stions, in intensive informal consultations both 
plurilateral and open-ended.  It is  hoped that this would enable the Membership to identify areas of 
convergence and help take the Wo rk Programme on S&D forward.  
  
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