NEGOTIATING GROUP ON RULES

Report by the Chairman, H.E. Mr WAYNE McCOOK to

the Trade Negotiations Committee

28 November 2017

1.     Since my last report to the TNC in October the Negotiating Group on Rules has continued its activities on three distinct pillars of its work – fisheries subsidies, trade remedies, and horizontal subsidies.

2.     The work on fisheries subsidies has been particularly active. At the Group's open-ended meeting clusters in mid- and late-October dedicated to this pillar, discussions were based on the "vertical" text produced by the proponents of the seven original proposals. That document compiled, and to varying degrees consolidated, language from those proposals, in all of the areas addressed (preamble, scope, definitions, prohibitions, standstill, special and differential treatment, transparency and notification, transitional provisions, and institutional arrangements).