WTO Members Reach Agreement on LDCs, IPR, Moratoriums, Etc.
As expected, the eighth Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organization which took place December 15-17, 2011 in Geneva produced no breakthroughs on the Doha Round negotiations. However, the 42 parties to the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) did agree to update and expand the GPA. In addition, all parties agreed to extend WTO membership offers to Russia, Samoa, and Montenegro. They also reached agreement on seven issues described below related to least developed economies, intellectual property rights, electronic transmissions, and small economies.
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(See ITT’s Online Archives 11121531, 11121625, 11121654 and 11121927 for summaries of the agreement to expand the GPA and of WTO membership offers being extended to Russia, Samoa, and Montenegro.)
The seven other agreements reached include the following:
- Extended moratorium on electronic transmission duties -- extension of the existing moratorium against imposing customs duties on electronic transmissions until 2013.
- Extended moratorium on “non-violation” IPR complaints - extension of the existing moratorium against “non-violation” complaints in intellectual property until 2013, which means that members will not bring IPR cases against each other unless a specific agreement has been violated.
- Services waiver for LDCs -- agreement to allow members to provide preferential treatment to services and service suppliers of least developed countries (LDCs).
- Extended deadline for LDC IPR implementation -- extension until 2013 of the deadline for LDCs to implement the WTO agreement’s intellectual property protection provisions.
- Speeding up LDC accession process -- agreement to facilitate and speed up negotiations when LDCs negotiate to become WTO members.
- Special provisions for small economies -- agreement to continue the work program for small, vulnerable economies (SVEs) including draft agreements to provide additional flexibilities to SVEs beyond those for other developing countries.
- Trade policy review mechanism -- agreement to implement certain changes on a provisional basis to the WTO’s Trade Policy Review Mechanism, including more follow-up reviews, etc.