Trade associations and industry groups urged World Trade Organization members to extend the moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions. In a "Global Industry Statement," ahead of the Nov. 30-Dec. 3 12th Ministerial Conference, 73 groups said that allowing the moratorium to expire would amount to a "historic setback for the WTO," due to its role in allowing the digital economy to grow. The groups urged an extension until the next conference. The moratorium is key to the COVID-19 recovery, as the cross-border exchange of knowledge, COVID technical expertise, and scientific and commercial information across transnational IT networks, "as well as access to digital tools and global market opportunities have helped sustain economies, expand education, and raise global living standards," the statement said.

The World Trade Organization published the agenda for the next meeting of the Dispute Settlement Body, set for Nov. 29. The agenda includes status reports by the U.S. on the implementation of recommendations adopted by the DSB on: antidumping measures on certain hot-rolled steel products from Japan; antidumping and countervailing measures on large residential washers from South Korea; certain methodologies and their application to antidumping proceedings involving China; and Section 110(5) of the U.S. Copyright Act. Other such status reports expected are from the European Union on measures affecting the approval and marketing of biotech products, and from Indonesia on horticultural products, animals and animal products. The EU is expected to make a statement about the implementation of DSB recommendations on the U.S.'s Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000; and the U.S., on the EU's measures affecting trade in large civil aircraft. Also, a long list of countries, excluding the U.S., made a proposal on appellate body appointments.

A World Trade Organization dispute panel found the U.S. violated WTO rules during investigations leading up to the imposition of countervailing duties on ripe olives from Spain. The panel found that the U.S. erred when finding that subsidies given to Spanish raw olive growers under the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy were specific to the olive growers, a finding that was inconsistent with measures in the WTO's Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures. The Court of International Trade independently came to the same conclusion. In June, the court said that the countervailing duties could not stand since they were not specific to Spanish olive growers (see 2106170075). The panel also said the Commerce Department's regulation permitting it to deem the full amount of subsidies taken in by raw olive growers to have passed through to the downstream producers lacks any real factual basis and is inconsistent with WTO rules. The panel did not find, however, that the antidumping duties on the same goods violated the trade body's rules. "The Commission's efforts to vigorously defend the interests and rights of EU producers, in this case growers of Spanish ripe olives, are now paying off," Valdis Dombrovskis, the EU's commissioner for trade, said. "The WTO has upheld our claims about anti-subsidy duties being unjustified and in violation of WTO rules. These duties severely hit Spanish olive producers, who saw their exports to the US fall dramatically as a result. We now expect the US to take the appropriate steps to implement the WTO ruling, so that exports of ripe olives from Spain to the US can resume under normal conditions.”

The World Trade Organization's Council for Trade-Related Aspects of IP Rights pledged to continue active discussions up until the 12th Ministerial Conference to find a common intellectual property response to COVID-19, the WTO said Nov. 18. MC12 will run Nov. 30-Dec. 3. The council members adopted the oral status report, which the TRIPS Council chair will submit to the General Council. The text gives an overview on TRIPS Council discussions in the past year on a proposal from India and South Africa and one from the European Union. The former seeks a waiver from certain TRIPS Agreement provisions for the "prevention, containment and treatment of COVID-19," while the latter wants a General Council declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health "in the circumstances of a pandemic." The WTO noted disagreements on whether the waiver or EU proposal is the most effective way to "address the shortage and inequitable distribution of, and access to, vaccines and other COVID-19-related products." The EU proposal also faces a fundamental query about whether its measures are effective enough to address vaccine distribution, the WTO said. The TRIPS Council will remain in session in pursuit of a solution ahead of MC12. It formally resumes Nov. 29. As the General Council meets Nov. 22-23, this means that the TRIPS Council will remain in session beyond the General Council and potentially all the way to the Ministerial Conference.

While the World Trade Organization's upcoming 12th Ministerial Conference presents an opportunity to start meaningful discussion over revising the globe's leading multilateral trading body, the event will lack an immediate solution to pressing issues such as appellate body reform or an end to the all-purpose member veto, a former WTO deputy director-general said. Speaking at a Nov. 18 event on MC12 hosted by the Washington International Trade Association, Alan Wolff, now a visiting fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, also explored the leadership dynamics that will be in play at the Nov. 30-Dec. 3 conference.

World Trade Organization members agreed to include discussions on COVID-19 pandemic preparedness, climate change and plastics pollution in the work plan as part of the Triennial Review of the Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement, the WTO said. Participants at the Nov. 10-12 Committee on TBT meeting also reviewed 89 specific trade concerns involving labeling, testing and product safety, the WTO said. "The Triennial Review is an opportunity to improve the work of the committee," said Elisa Olmeda, the new TBT Committee chair. "It helps members keep up with new topics and improve their work in the areas of transparency and standards setting. The review keeps us dynamic, informed and ensures a better implementation of the TBT Agreement." Environmental measures dominated the discussion, the WTO said. Issues discussed included the carbon footprint of batteries, circular economy, plastic waste management, hazardous chemical classification and vehicle emissions.

The top trade officials in Japan, the U.S. and the European Union announced that they are restarting the trilateral discussions on how to address the challenges "posed by non-market policies and practices of third countries," U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said Nov. 17. They said they will meet on the margins of the World Trade Organization conference in Geneva. Former USTR Robert Lighthizer began these talks, which produced a statement (see 1901090063) that said they aimed to write text on disciplines for industrial subsidies to be considered at the WTO, and also that they were working on the outlines of new rules on forced technology transfers.

The European Union will request a World Trade Organization panel in its ongoing dispute settlement case against Russia's state-owned enterprise procurement practices, the European Commission announced Nov. 17. The EU is challenging Russia's favoring domestic goods and services by state-related entities "to the detriment of EU companies." The EU's panel request will be considered at the next WTO Dispute Settlement Body meeting on Nov. 29.

Costa Rica Ambassador Gloria Abraham Peralta, who chairs the World Trade Organization's agriculture negotiations, plans to release "as soon as possible" a revised draft negotiation text for an agriculture package ahead of the Nov. 30-Dec. 3 12th Ministerial Conference, the WTO said. Peralta also said she aims to submit her report to the Trade Negotiations Committee Nov. 19 to capitalize on this "critical time" ahead of MC12. The first draft negotiation text for an MC12 agriculture package was introduced July 29. The main negotiation topics were "domestic support, market access, export restrictions, export competition, cotton, public stockholding for food security purposes (PSH) and a special safeguard mechanism (SSM) as well as cross-cutting transparency issues," the WTO said.

The World Trade Organization and the Asian Development Bank, along with three other institutions, released a new report Nov. 16 looking into the state of global value chain resilience, finding that GVCs have shown to be resilient in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, the WTO said Nov. 16. Identifying recent GVC trends, the report notes the increasing role of services and intellectual property and GVCs' importance in the global economic recovery.