6:26 AM Jan 27, 1994
FORGOTTEN HAZARDOUS GOODS EXPORTS FOR MARRAKESH?
Geneva 26 Jan (Chakravarthi Raghavan) -- GATT sources said Wednesday that a long-pending issue, and one where a near-agreement was reached in the runup to the Brussels GATT meet, is likely to figure in the preparatory work for the Marrakesh Ministerial meeting and could be adopted there. This relates to an issue raised in 1982, namely for banning exports of domestically prohibited or severely restricted products. This long-pending issue that surprisingly did not figure in the CPs session agenda, nor in the Uruguay Round TNC meeting of December 15, though draft decision on this had been readied by a working party. This issue pre-dated the launch of the Uruguay Round, and had been mandated by the 1982 GATT Ministerial meeting. But nothing happened in the GATT after 1982. The lack of progress and action, was brought up by several of the African cps mid-way through the Uruguay Round negotiations, with Nigeria (which with Sri Lanka) had raised the issue at the 1982 Ministerial meeting pressing for action and linking it to the Uruguay Round accords. A working group under then UK Permanent Representative, Amb. Sankey, was asked to look into it and, in the runup to the Brussels meeting, it had evolved an agreement for notification by all cps of all goods whose sale in the domestic market was prohibited or severely restricted on health or other grounds. It was felt that through the notification procedures, every GATT cp would be aware of the goods that countries allowed to be exported even though its sales domestically was prohibited or severely restricted. This would enable the other contracting parties to ban the import of the goods or require special licensing procedures, allow for imports only on basis of prior consent. At that time, the US had entered a reserve -- having wanted exclusion from the notification requirements of pharmaceutical and other chemical products (including pesticides etc) and also automobile spare parts. It is not known whether under the Clinton administration, and its claims to being 'greener' than the previous ones, the US position has changed. In the runup to Brussels, there had been a general agreement that the recommendation and draft "decision" of the Sankey group would be brought up before the GATT CPs along with the Uruguay Round agreements, leaving the onus of blocking it to the US. But in the post-Brussels period, the issue appears to have again disappeared from the GATT agenda. Some GATT participants said that it was unfortunate that the Africans who had raised the issue had not pursued it and brought the issue on the CPs agenda. However, they had no explanation as to why the GATT secretariat had not flagged the issue to the attention of the GATT Council Chairman or the CPs Chairman as among the pending questions that should figure on the Agenda of the CPs session. GATT sources said Thursday that the subject was now expected to figure in the work being undertaken in the runup to Marrakesh.