REGIONAL TRADE AGREEMENTS: COMMITTEE

Historical background on Committee work (1996-2006)

Before the provisional Transparency Mechanism on Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) was established in 2006, the Committee on RTAs accomplished tasks relating to the examination of RTAs, procedures to facilitate and improve the examination process, reporting of RTAs and systemic issues.

Examination

The Committee on RTAs (CRTA) was responsible for conducting the examination of RTAs notified under Article XXIV of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT 1994) and , when requested, under Article V of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).

Agreements under Article XXIV were notified to the Council for Trade in Goods (CTG), which adopted the terms of reference and transferred the agreement to the CRTA for examination. RTAs covering trade in services were notified under Article V of the GATS to the Council for Trade in Services (CTS), which could opt to pass the agreement to the CRTA for examination. Unlike the case of RTAs notified under Article XXIV of the GATT, such examination was optional. In the vast majority of cases, such examination was mandated.

Agreements falling under the Enabling Clause were notified to the Committee on Trade and Development (CTD), but no examination was in general mandated.

The examination of an agreement in the CRTA served two purposes: it ensured the transparency of RTAs and allowed WTO members to evaluate an agreement's consistency with WTO rules. The examination was conducted on the basis of information provided by the parties to the RTA — generally on the basis of a “Standard Format” developed by the Committee - as well as through written replies to written questions posed by WTO members or through oral replies to questions posed at CRTA meetings. Once the factual examination was concluded, the Secretariat drafted the examination report. Thereafter, consultations were conducted and once the report was agreed by the CRTA, it was submitted to the relevant superior body for adoption.

However, due to lack of consensus among WTO members, no examination report has been completed since 1995, when examinations of agreements were conducted in individual working parties before the committee was created.

Back to top

Procedures

Under procedures to facilitate and improve the examination process (see documents WT/REG/W/15 and WT/REG/W/15/Add.1 ), the Committee developed a Standard Format for information on agreements in the area of goods (WT/REG/W/6) and in the area of services (WT/REG/W/14).

 

Back to top

Reporting

Under reporting, the CRTA developed a regular schedule for the submission of biennial reports applying to those RTAs where an examination report had already been adopted. The document reference for such reports can be found in the RTA Database. In 2006, the CRTA postponed any action in this respect and since the adoption of the Transparency Mechanism the practice of submitting a calendar for biennial reports has been discontinued.

 

Back to top

Systemic issues

The Committee agreed to deal with “systemic issues” under a three-pronged approach, encompassing: (i) legal analyses of relevant WTO provisions; (ii) horizontal comparisons of RTAs; and (iii) a debate on the context and economic aspects of RTAs.

The legal analysis of WTO provisions underlined the divergent views that exist on the interpretation of certain elements of the WTO rules governing RTAs. In-depth discussions took place on many aspects of GATT Article XXIV, the Enabling Clause and GATS Article V based on submissions by WTO members and papers by the WTO Secretariat. Document WT/REG/W/37 summarizes on a factual basis the discussion on the legal aspects of the WTO provisions. See also the Annotated Checklist of Systemic Issues (WT/REG/W/16 ) prepared by the Secretariat.

The Secretariat has compiled studies on the horizontal comparisons of RTAs. See the Inventory of Non-Tariff Provisions in Regional Trade Agreements WT/REG/W/26 , Rules of Origin Regimes in Regional Trade Agreements WT/REG/W/45 and Coverage, Liberalization Process and Transitional Provisions in Regional Trade Agreements WT/REG/W/46.