SUNS 4350 Tuesday 22 December 1998



US SEEKS MORE TIME ON SHRIMP RULING

Geneva, 21 Dec (Chakravarthi Raghavan) -- The United States has sought, and has got more time from the four complainants who won a case against the US over the shrimp-turtle dispute to announce to the WTO about its time-frame for implementing the ruling.

Under the WTO rules, the US had 45 days from the adoption of the ruling to disclose to the WTO about when it would implement, or seek arbitration for a "reasonable" period of time that arbitrators would fix.

But at the US request, Thailand, Pakistan, India and Malaysia have agreed to extend this deadline by a month. The other deadlines, including the deadline for an arbitrator etc, would kick in at the end of that period.

Though no reasons have been given, the current preoccupations of the administration and Congress in Washington has persuaded the four countries to give the US time over the holidays to take a decision and convey it to the WTO.