Negotiating Group on Rules - Submission on Regional Trade Agreements - Paper by Chile

World Trade Organization TN/RL/W/152 26 April 2004 (04-1850) Negotiating Group on Rules Original: English SUBMISSION ON REGIONAL TRADE AGREEMENTS Paper by Chile The following submission, dated 23 April 2004, is being circulated at the request of the Delegation of Chile. _______________ GATS Article V Paragraph 29 of the Doha Ministerial Declaration gives us a mandate to clarify and improve “existing WTO provisions applying to regional trade agreements”. The term “regional trade agreements” refers to “all bilateral, regional and plurilateral trade agreement of a preferential nature”. It is obvious that we are dealing not only with GATT Article XXIV but also with GATS Article V. The Committee on Regional Trade Agreements discussed some systemic issues on Article V. Those discussions are reflected in the Compendium of issues prepared by the Secretariat of the WTO. Although Australia and the EC identified this as a key issue at the beginning o