199/ New chair highlights importance of concluding fisheries subsidies negotiations
8 November 2019
The Negotiating Group on Rules elected on 8 November its new chair, Ambassador Santiago Wills (Colombia), who will lead ongoing discussions on fisheries subsidies. The chair said WTO members have the responsibility to successfully conclude the negotiations, with the organization’s credibility and the protection of oceans at stake.
“The world is watching what we do here and we simply cannot afford to fail both the health of the oceans and the credibility of this organization,” the chair said, adding that he will convene a meeting of heads of WTO delegations soon to seek their political guidance on work for the remaining weeks in the year.
UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 14.6 sets a deadline of 2020 for eliminating subsidies to illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and for prohibiting certain forms of fisheries subsidies that contribute to overcapacity and overfishing, with special and differential treatment for developing and least-developed countries.
In the 2017 Ministerial Decision on Fisheries Subsidies, members agreed to continue to engage constructively in fisheries subsidies negotiations, with a view to adopting an agreement by the next Ministerial Conference in 2019. In taking the subsequent decision to hold that Ministerial Conference in June 2020, members reaffirmed their commitment to complete the fisheries subsidies negotiations by the end of 2019.
Prior to the chair’s election, members had the opportunity on 4-8 November to exchange views and information on fisheries subsidies issues in bilateral meetings, other meetings organized by members, and consultations led by six facilitators who are WTO delegates.
Members behind five new submissions introduced their proposals. These are an initial text from Argentina, Australia, United States and Uruguay to incorporate a capping approach for certain fisheries subsidies; a draft text from the European Union, Japan, Korea and Chinese Taipei on prohibiting subsidies contributing to overcapacity and overfishing; draft texts from Australia on institutional arrangements for a committee and a possible consultations mechanism to be used before dispute settlement; and a draft text from the Philippine regarding subsidies to fishing in disputed waters.
The next cluster of fisheries subsidies meetings will be held in the week of 2 December.
Source: wto.org
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267