REPORT (2020) OF THE COMMITTEE ON safeguards
to the council for trade in goods
(ADOPTED ON 26 October 2020)
1 general
1. The Committee on Safeguards ("Committee") performs the
functions set out in Article 13 of the Agreement on Safeguards. This report is
submitted in accordance with Article 13.1(a) of the Agreement, which
requires the Committee to report annually to the Council for Trade in Goods on
the general implementation of the Agreement. The report covers the period
18 November 2019 – 26 October 2020 ("period under review").
2. During the period under review, the Committee held only one[1]
regular meeting on 18 November 2019 (G/SG/M/57), and held three
informal meetings on 10 March 2020, 27 July 2020 and on 29 September 2020.
3. Observer governments in the General Council of the WTO have observer
status in the Committee. Pursuant to their Agreements with the WTO, the IMF and
the World Bank have observer status in the Committee as well. UNCTAD has
observer status through a Committee decision. At its regular meetings in 1998,
the Committee decided to invite the Organization of African, Caribbean and
Pacific States ("OACPS") and the OECD to attend Committee
meetings on an ad hoc basis.
4. As of the beginning of the review period, Ms Katherine Dellar
(Australia) was Chair and Mr Madi Sarsenov (Kazakhstan) was
Vice-Chair of the Committee. At the end of its regular meeting in October 2020,
the Committee elected Mr Mustafa Tuzcu (Turkey) as Chair and Ms Noriko
Teranishi (Japan) as Vice-Chair.
[1] Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the spring meeting of the Committee
which was scheduled to be held in the week of 27 April 2020 had to be
cancelled. The Chair of the Committee, Ms Katherine Dellar, sent a communication
to this effect to Members on 17 March 2020. The Chair consulted with Members to
explore possibilities for conducting work remotely/and or through a written
question and answer procedure on at least some of the agenda items that would
have been discussed at the spring Regular meeting, and informed Members in a
communication dated 13 May 2020 that no consensus had been reached on any of
the alternatives proposed. The Chair sent a further communication, regarding
the date of the October meeting, to Members on 5 June 2020. The usual document
relaying the deadlines for submission of various documentation in conjunction
with that meeting was circulated on 22 June 2020 in document G/SG/W/247. The
agenda items that would have been taken up during the spring meeting were
carried forward to the October 2020 meeting.