A propos de l’OMC

En 2015, la OMC cooperó con diversas organizaciones intergubernamentales. Con la Conferencia de las Naciones Unidas sobre Comercio y Desarrollo (UNCTAD), firmó una declaración destinada a fortalecer su colaboración. Con el Banco Mundial, coeditó un informe sobre la función del comercio en la eliminación de la pobreza, y, conjuntamente con la UNCTAD y la Organización de Cooperación y Desarrollo Económicos (OCDE), siguió publicando informes sobre las medidas del G-20 en materia de comercio e inversión. El Director General, Roberto Azevêdo, viajó a Nueva York para asistir a la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas, en la que se adoptaron los nuevos Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS).

In 2016, the Council for Trade in Goods addressed many trade concerns, including ten new ones, reflecting its growing role as a forum for airing concerns about measures, policies and practices considered potentially discriminatory or trade restricting. China and Pakistan presented a proposal for advancing the WTO work programme on e-commerce. The Council also considered several waiver requests.

Four comprehensive reports were presented by the Director-General on global trade developments, in January, April, July and November 2009. These were discussed at various meetings of the Trade Policy Review Body (TPR B). The reports showed that, despite the depth of the crisis and rising unemployment, WTO members had, by and large, resisted domestic protectionist pressures and kept markets open. Nor was there any significant instance of trade retaliation. Nevertheless, there were aspects of countries’ stimulus packages that threatened to distort trade, notably ‘buy national’ policies attached to some public spending programmes and the substantial help given by some governments to the banking and auto industries.

The Standards and Trade Development Facility (STDF) continued to help developing countries improve their capacity to implement sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) standards and to access wider markets. It supported the preparation and implementation of numerous new projects aimed at promoting compliance with international standards and facilitating market access. It also produced a user guide on how to prioritize SPS investments and published a series of case studies highlighting the results of recent projects.

La première édition de la « Journée des données » à l'OMC s'est tenue les 18 et 19 mai 2009. Cette initiative interorganisations avait pour objectif de sensibiliser davantage à l'utilisation et à l'interprétation des données statistiques relatives au commerce, de permettre aux utilisateurs de se familiariser avec leurs applications, d'appeler l'attention sur les besoins persistants en matière de données et de promouvoir la cohérence et la coopération entre les organisations internationales qui gèrent des données.

As the Legal Affairs Division (LAD) passes its thirtieth anniversary and following the accounts of many of its staff as well as practitioners and scholars who have contributed recollections of their three decades of experience, it seems appropriate to complement this with a personal view with regards to its future evolution.

The relationship between trade and sustainable development is complex and challenging. In this chapter, I shall focus on one component of that challenge: the relationship between trade and environment. I shall argue that, contrary to general opinion, the environment has made significant progress in the World Trade Organization (WTO). This arises not so much from the progress in environmentally-related negotiations nor from the regular work of the WTO Committee on Trade and Environment (CTE), but from the work of the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) and, in particular, the Appellate Body. While this has led to charges of ‘judicial activism’ on the part of the Appellate Body, I argue that the Appellate Body is simply fulfilling its mandate to clarify and interpret WTO law and to fill gaps left by negotiators.

The year 2018 marked the 70th anniversary of the provisional application of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT 1947). Although it was intended to be applied on a provisional basis, the GATT 1947 governed international trade for almost half a century. Its principles, rules and procedures evolved over this period to respond to the changing needs and challenges of GATT contracting parties, providing the basis for today’s strengthened international trade rules under the GATT’s successor, the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The principal lesson from the failure of the talks at the Seattle Ministerial in November 1999 was that ministers could not possibly negotiate on the broad agenda, covering many sensitive topics, that was now before the WTO (and would continue until Cancún) without detailed preparation at the WTO in Geneva. This advance preparation would need to clarify the extent of the commitments that might be required when the negotiations were concluded. The various distractions and disagreements which arose during the preparatory period for the Ministerial Conference had hindered this process of preparation to the extent that ministers did not feel confident about launching negotiations.