News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Tuesday, April 29, 2025
Ambassadors to the World Trade Organization are meeting for an intensive two-day General Council meeting where few actual decisions are expected, except the most expedient: adoption of next year’s budget, and, if all goes well, a decision on Thursday (17 December) to ban export restrictions on food items purchased by …
Ahead of the last General Council meeting of the year – the agenda of which is now finally out -, US Ambassador to the WTO Dennis Shea, who represented the Trump administration in Geneva and oversaw the blockage of the Appellate Body, made a farewell speech as he prepares to …
Some developments at the WTO this week…. Negotiators adopt second version of e-commerce agreement draft text Many observers note that negotiations on a text that would set rules for digital trade in the 21st Century have had difficulties making meaningful headway this autumn. Eighty-six WTO members have been looking in …
Post-COVID 19 TRIPS campaigning intensifies NGOs such as Médecins Sans Frontières (the French ‘Doctors without Borders’ humanitarian organisation) are joining the campaign of developing countries led by India and South Africa at the WTO who are asking for sweeping flexibilities and/or a waiver on intellectual property rules. The aim is …
Here some notable news on WTO issues this week. US to remove ‘essential’ medical products from its Government Procurement Agreement commitments Whereas official WTO corporate communications focus on the ‘news’ that Switzerland and the United Kingdom will now formally be part of the ‘revised GPA’ of 2014, there is a …
Last woman standing: Appellate Body member Hong Zhao says good-bye China’s Appellate Body member was the last woman standing until yesterday. Hong Zhao, a Chinese scholar, was long a thorn in the eye of the United States. Since the terms of two colleagues expired in early December last year, Ms …
The Ottawa Group, an informal network of countries interested in discussing reforms at the World Trade Organization established in early 2019 is seeking improvements in the way trade in healthcare products is handled beyond the current COVID-19 pandemic. The signatories are eyeing a possible Joint Statement in early 2021, which …
This week at the WTO in Geneva might be celebrated as one of comparatively good news in a world of low expectations. We already covered the fact that two environment initiatives were launched. Celebrating 25 years of WTO The date almost went under as despite its young years, the world’s …
A series of papers published by the think tank Europe Jacques Delors puts forward proposals that aim to strengthen environmental protection within an open international trading system. Borderlex’s Iana Dreyer exchanged views with one of the papers’ co-authors Geneviève Pons.
A subset of 23 World Trade Organization members formally launched an initiative on ‘trade and environment’ that could lead to concrete proposals to the institution at its next ministerial conference. Another initiative announced during this week’s WTO ‘Trade and Environment Week’ is a Chinese-led plastic waste “informal dialogue”.
