So rules on amendments apply—WTO Agreement, Art.10, Par.3:
“Amendments … shall take effect for the Members that have accepted them upon acceptance by two thirds of the Members and thereafter for each other Member upon acceptance by it.”
TL:DR—if by some miracle a #FisheriesSubsidies deal is struck at the Nov30–Dec 3 WTO Ministerial Conference, it will take a least a year or two to be added to the rule book.
1. The statement will only be issued by some members (about two thirds of the membership are not on board, although China and the US are reported to have joined the EU, Canada, Japan and others but not Brazil, India, SAfrica, etc
• Market access—nothing on tariff cuts, only transparency on applied tariffs (rates actually applied, at or below legally bound rates in the WTO)
• Export restrictions—notifications, exempting World Food Programme purchases from restrictions
First, a transcript of a White House briefing, including:
• The size of the tariff quotas—still to be announced
• The start of talks on a deal focusing on carbon intensity in the metals
• Avoiding Chinese content in EU steel—“melt-and-pour”
Cooperation on trade remedies (duties to countervail subsidies, anti-dumping actions, safeguard tariffs), customs, monitoring, and responses to “non-market excess capacity”.
2. PROPOSED GLOBAL ARRANGEMENT to “restore market-oriented conditions”
• Others can join
• In 2 years
• Bring into international forums
• Limit market access for non-market-oriented/carbon-intense exporters
• Discipline, coordinate own policies
@BobWolfeSPS and I remain sceptical that the Ministerial Conference will deliver much of significance out of the broad range of critical problems confronting the @wto