CIEL co-organizes discussion on the WTO's non-agricultural market access negotiations and the environment, July 2005

Trade and Sustainable Development

For more information about CIEL's Trade & Sustainable Development Program, contact Baskut Tuncak.

CIEL relies on the spirit of charitable giving from supporters and friends like you. Together we can make a critical difference.

When:	July 28 13:30-15:30
Where:	World Council of Churches, 150 route de Ferney, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland
What:	An informal sharing/discussion on the state of play of the negotiations on market access as they relate to the environment. This will include issues relating to paragraph 31(iii) of the Doha Declaration on environmental goods and services and paragraph 16 on non-agricultural market access, particularly with respect to nontariff barriers and proposals for sectoral negotiations on market access on forest and fish products, chemicals, electronics, etc.

Goals:

Improve understanding of the state of negotiations;
Identify implications of the negotiations on the environment and developing countries;
Share and discuss ideas, messages, and recommendations; and
Possibly, coalesce around certain key messages and identify opportune times between July and the Hong Kong Ministerial to confer identified messages through single or joint activities.

Some Background:

Environmental NGOs have been skeptical about the limited scope of the negotiations on paragraph 31 on environmental goods and services and have not been actively influencing the debates. Specifically, on tariff liberalization, some groups feel that it is wrong to assume some subsets of goods or services can be considered 'environmental' under all circumstances.
In the context of the negotiations on non-agricultural market access (NAMA) informal discussions are taking place among Members for sectoral approaches to tariff reductions in various sectors, including critical environmental sectors, such as forests and fisheries.
In the negotiating group on market access (NGMA) several Members have notified nontariff barriers that are problematic for their exporters. A significant number of these notified nontariff barriers are environment and health related "barriers". How Members will address these notifications in the negotiations is currently unclear.

Additional Materials:

For more information, please contact Marcos Orellana.