RESTRICTEDWORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONTN/CTD/M/14
1 April 2003
(03-1825)
Committee on Trade and Development
Fourteenth Special Session
NOTE ON THE MEETING OF 3 AND 20 DECEMBER 2002
Chairman:  H.E. Mr Ransford Smith (Jamaica)
A. ADOPTION OF THE DRAFT AGENDA
1. The Chairman indicated that the draft agenda for the meeting was contained in
airgram WTO/AIR/1983 of 26 November 2002.  He said that since the last formal meeting, the
Egyptian delegation had submitted a paper on sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS), which
would be issued as TN/CTD/W/24.  In the 25 Nove mber 2002 meeting he had drawn attention to the
responses received from the Chairs of twenty-three other WTO bodies to the request to be keptinformed of any issues related to special and di fferential (S&D) treatment within their respective
bodies.  Subsequent to that meeting, responses had been received from the Committee on Regional
Trade Agreements, the Committee on Trade and Environment, the Committee on Trade in Financial
Services and the Negotiating Group on Rules.  A follow-up response had also been received from the
Committee on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures and the Working Party on Subsidy
Notifications.
2. The agenda was adopted.
B. CONSIDERATION OF THE REPORT TO THE GENERAL COUNCIL
3. The Chairman proposed that the meeting go into  informal mode for an initial discussion on
the report to the General Council.
4. It was so agreed.
5. The 14th Special Session of the Committee on Trade and Development (CTD) was suspended
on 3 December 2002 and reconvened on 20 December 2002.
6. The Chairman then recalled that a draft report to the General Council had been made
available to Members (TN/CTD/W/25) on 3 December 2002, and that a discussion had taken place
thereon.  From that discussion it had emerged that while many aspects of the report had appeared to
be acceptable to Members, with a few suggestions made for changes, there were two main outstanding
issues.  The first such issue pertained to the proposed Annex III, which, as envisaged by the Chair,
would contain those Agreement-specific propos als on which Members had agreed to make
recommendations for a decision, in accordance with the mandate of the Special Session.  The second
main outstanding issue was the "Way Forward", for which three options had been presented in thedraft report. Since the convening of the Special Session on 3 December 2002, intensive consultations
had been held in those two areas.  Beginnin g with the Agreement-specific proposals and the
consultations thereon, he recalled that he had, on his own responsibility, and on the basis of the
discussions that had taken place in the Special Session, identified twenty-two proposals on which it
appeared that agreement might be possible.  Those proposals had been subject to intensive discussionsand agreement had been reached on four of them: two on the GATS, one on the Agreement on
Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), and one on the Enabling Clause.
Members were not far from agreement on several other proposals, but had not been able to cover the
last few yards that could have yielded agreement in those cases.  The proposed Annex III wouldTN/CTD/M/14
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therefore comprise the four agreed recommendations, with work yet to be completed on several
others.  Additionally, the African Group had tabled three new proposals which they wished to be
considered immediately in the consultations, and the delegation of India had drawn attention to a
number of the proposals it had tabled earlier in the Special Session, asking that they be also subject to
immediate consultations with a view to taking possible decisions.  He had set out three options in thedraft report to the General Council (TN/CTD/W/25) with regard to the Way Forward.  However, it
had not been possible to reach an agreement on any of those three options.  The two main areas of
difference were the question of referral of some of the Agreement-specific proposals to other bodies,
and the question of timelines for completing the remaining work of the Special Session.  Those two
issues remained outstanding.  He was therefore not in a position to recommend an agreed view of
Members on the Way Forward.  Members were invited to comment on how, and what, the Special
Session should report to the General Council later that day.
7. The representative of Australia said that in his view there were two options.  The first was to
abort the efforts made over the previous forty-eight hours to try and adopt a report to the General
Council, and leave it for the Chairman to report th e lack of consensus in the Special Session in that
regard.  The second option was to make another attempt at coming to an agreement on the report by
seeing if it was possible to agree on the two major outstanding issues that the Chairman hadmentioned, i.e. referrals to other bodies and timelines for completion of the work.  Members would
not be making a good use of time if they abandoned their efforts to come to a conclusion on the report
to the General Council, and based their discussion on the assumption that there would be no report.
8. The Chairman noted that the representative of Australia was suggesting two options: either
that the Chairman simply report to the General Counc il that agreement had not been possible, or that
Members resume work with respect to the draft Section on the Way Forward, which had already been
discussed at least twice. Comments made in the first round of discussions had been taken into account
in a second draft of the "Way Forward", which included certain new timelines based upon the
Chairman's judgement of the discussions.  The di scussions held the previous night on that second
draft had not led to an agreement amongst Members.  The representative of Australia had expressed apreference for the second alternative.
9. The representative of the European Communities, reacting to the proposal by the
representative of Australia, said that his delegation was willing to go into informal mode and use the
time available to try to achieve an agreement on the Chairman's revised text on the Way Forward.  His
delegation was not overly optimistic about the possibility of an agreement, but was nonetheless
willing to make another attempt.  He did not suppo rt the idea of the Chairman merely reporting the
lack of agreement to the General Council and then leaving it to the Council, because that would undothe tremendous effort which the Chair had made in taking the work of the Special Session forward.
He thought that some progress had been made, and agreed with the Chairman that agreement on quite
a few of the "do-ables" had been within reach the previous two days, and that Members should have
gone the extra mile necessary to reach an agreement on them.  For that reason he felt that rather than
making a non-report to the General Council, the Chairman should make an interim report, whichcould take the form of the earlier draft report, along with the new Section VII and an Annex III
containing the four proposals which Members had agreed upon. In his oral report the Chairman could
then inform the General Council that more time was needed to deal with the outstanding issues
mentioned in Section VII of the report and wi th the remaining "do-able" Agreement-specific
proposals.
10. The Chairman noted that the representative of the European Communities had put forward
another alternative on a possible approach to the report to the General Council.  He enquired whether
Members had any objection to the course of action suggested by the European Communities.  As he
understood it, it consisted in presenting an interim report to the General Council, which would
comprise the draft report contained in TN/CTD/W/25, but with the new Section on the Way Forwardthat had been under discussion until the previous night, an Annex with the four "do-ables" that hadTN/CTD/M/14
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been agreed upon, and an indication that more time was needed to complete the work of the Special
Session.
11. The representative of Zambia, speaking on behalf of the LDCs, noted that they had shown a
high level of flexibility and that was the reason why there was an agreement on four proposals, all of
which had come from their group.  In response to the European Communities' proposal, he said thatthey maintained the position that they had stated previously.  There was no indication from his
constituency to take a different course.  He had exercised a high level of flexibility which had made it
possible for them to speak about the four proposals.  That was as far as they could go.  They reiterated
however the position expressed the previous night, i. e. that they could not accept those four proposals
being used in the report.  Their position on the other points also remained unchanged.
12. The representative of the European Communities said he was aware of the position the LDCs
and others had on Section VII, and that was why he had explicitly talked about a "draft report".  He
was in fact proposing that the Chairman make a f actual report of Members' work within the Special
Session.  That factual report would cover the draft report under consideration except for Section VII
and Annex III, on which there had been no agreement so far.  As far as Section VII was concerned, he
suggested that the Chairman inform the General Council that he had put forward a proposal on his
own responsibility, and that since there was no agreement on that proposal, the Special Sessionneeded to continue discussions.  As far as Annex III was concerned, he suggested that the Chairman
inform the General Council that they had been work ing on the "do-ables", and at that stage had only
reached agreement on four "do-ables", which was certainly insufficient for most delegations,
including his.
13. The representative of the United States said that perhaps what the representative of the
European Communities was suggesting was close to the best Members could do, but felt that it would
be better if they could also get a sense of how th e work would be organized the following year.  He
indicated that in the last informal consultations there had been a discussion with two hypothesis on the
table, one of which he called the "sprint" option, and the other the "marathon" option.  He said that the
"sprint" idea, which had been proposed by India and supported by some other Member, was thatMembers make every effort to do what they could to finish the work by February 2003.  The other
alternative was to continue the process with a more elaborate organizational structure, and some
Members thought that if they were to proceed that  way they would need more time to complete the
work.  He noted that some other delegations had expressed intermediate views, some of them
tentative.  His delegation was therefore ready to engage in a continuing discussion and to see whether
Members could reach closure on the process, so that when they returned in January they would be
ready to get down to work immediately.
14. The Chairman reiterated that the proposal by the European Communities was that an interim
report be made to the General Council indicating that more time was needed to complete the work of
the Special Session.  He also noted that the United States had suggested that it would be necessary to
also have a discussion on how the Special Session would then carry out its work.
15. The Representative of Australia asked whether the representative of India could explain what
he had in mind when making the proposal that had been referred to by the delegate of the
United States.
16. The representative of India clarified that the proposal he had made in the previous
consultations had been made in his individual capacity, something he had made clear that day.  He
noted that an Australian delegate had been present in those consultations, and that he would be in aposition to explain what he had said.
17. The Chairman reiterated his understanding of the proposal by the European Communities, to
which he had heard no objection, i.e. that he make an interim report to the General Council includingTN/CTD/M/14
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the draft report (TN/CTD/W/25), which contained a reference to Annex III and had three options for
the Way Forward.  There had been discussions on bo th Annex III and the Way Forward since the draft
report had been made available to Members on 3 December.  Those developments could be presented
in an oral update to the General Council, in which he could indicate to the General Council  that the
Special Session required more time to finalize its report.
18. The representative of Japan said his delegation supported doing as much work as possible, but
noted that Members had come to a point where a decision had to be made on the Way Forward.  He
supported the basic thrust of the proposal made by the representative of the European Communities,
though his interpretation of the proposal was that the Chair be asked to submit to the General Council
a report saying that there was a draft report, with a proposal for the Way Forward and a
recommendation on four proposals for a possible decision.  He could support the suggested course of
action to that extent.
19. The representative of the European Communities said that Members should agree to enable
the Chairman to make a factual report of what the Special Session had been doing, especially since
some progress had been made.  The Chairman should include in that report the draft on which there
was agreement among Members, and inform the General Council that there was no agreement on
Section VII, which he had drafted on his own responsibility, and that as a result Members needed tocontinue discussions on it.  He said that the Chairm an should also inform the General Council that, as
far as the Agreement-specific proposals were concerned, Members had come to an agreement on four
of them, but needed to arrive at a more substantive package.
20. The representative of the United States said that, if the Special Session was in a position to
support the proposal by the representative of the European Communities, his delegation would not
come in the way of a consensus, although they would have preferred to have reached an agreement on
the report, including on the Way Forward.
21. The representative of Kenya said that the African Group would not object to the Chairman
making an interim report to the General Council, but would not be in a position to agree to include
Annex III in the report, since it had not been agreed to.  The Chairman's interim report could mentionthat the Special Session had discussed the "Way Forward" but had not been able to reach an
agreement, without necessarily forw arding to the General Council the draft that had been discussed.
He agreed with the European Communities that the report should be a factual one, and that Members
could then move on and see what they could accomplish early the following year in the Special
Session.
22. The representative of Pakistan noted that the main differences in the previous consultations
had been with respect to two paragraphs, namely paragraph 2 and the dates in paragraph 6.  His
impression was that developed country Members were of the view that there should be an Annex III
containing the four proposals, which could be in the form of an early harvest, but the demandeurs
were of the opinion that this constituted only about five percent of the total number of proposals that
had been made, and therefore did not want to include such an Annex.  The only solution therefore
seemed to be to indicate both positions in paragraph 2, and thus have the factual report that had beensuggested by the European Communities.
23. In conclusion the Chairman said that he would proceed on the basis of the proposal made by
the European Communities, and make a factual report to the General Council, on his own
responsibility.
24. It was so agreed.
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