1. SURVEILLANCE OF IMPLEMENTATION OF RECOMMENDATIONS ADOPTED BY THE DSB
A. UNITED STATES SECTION 211 OMNIBUS APPROPRIATIONS ACT OF 1998: STATUS REPORT BY THE UNITED STATES (WT/DS176/11/ADD.80)
• Mr. Chairman, the United States provided a status report in this dispute on July 9, 2009, in accordance with Article 21.6 of the DSU.
• As noted in that status report, a number of legislative proposals that would implement the DSB’s recommendations and rulings in this dispute have been introduced in the current Congress, which convened in January.
• The U.S. Administration is working with Congress to implement the DSB’s recommendations and rulings.
[Second intervention:]
• Mr. Chairman, we have taken note of the statements today, and we will convey these to our authorities.
• We would like to respond briefly to the statements by some Members that this dispute raises concerns for the credibility of the dispute settlement system, a point the United States has addressed several times before. As we have previously expressed, the United States does not believe that those concerns are well-founded, and we refer Members to those previous statements.
• In particular, the United States has noted that, if the situation in this dispute were having systemic consequences, one would expect Members to be demonstrating less interest in bringing disputes to the WTO, but the facts do not bear this out. In fact, under today’s agenda, there are two requests for the establishment of a panel, including one by a Member expressing concern under this sub-item.
• Finally, Mr. Chairman, the United States wishes to recall that it has reiterated its intention to implement the DSB’s recommendations and rulings in its status report and in its statement today.
B. UNITED STATES ANTI DUMPING MEASURES ON CERTAIN HOT ROLLED STEEL PRODUCTS FROM JAPAN: STATUS REPORT BY
• The United States provided a status report in this dispute on July 9, 2009, in accordance with Article 21.6 of the DSU.
• As of November 23, 2002, the U.S. authorities had addressed the DSB’s recommendations and rulings with respect to the calculation of antidumping margins in the hot-rolled steel antidumping duty investigation at issue in this dispute. Details are were provided in the document numbered WT/DS184/15/ADD.3.
• As stated previously, with respect to the recommendations and rulings of the DSB that were not already addressed by the U.S. authorities by November 23, 2002, the U.S. Administration will work with the U.S. Congress with respect to appropriate statutory measures that would resolve this matter.
C. UNITED STATES SECTION 110(5) OF THE US COPYRIGHT ACT: STATUS REPORT BY THE UNITED STATES (WT/DS160/24/ADD.55)
• The United States provided a status report in this dispute on July 9, 2009, in accordance with Article 21.6 of the DSU.
• On July 13, the EC Trade Commissioner and the U.S. Trade Representative met and announced that they had exchanged ideas on this dispute.
• The U.S. Administration will continue to confer with the European Communities, and to work closely with the U.S. Congress, in order to reach a mutually satisfactory resolution of this matter.
D. EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES MEASURES AFFECTING THE APPROVAL AND MARKETING OF BIOTECH PRODUCTS: STATUS REPORT BY THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES (WT/DS291/37/ADD.18 WT/DS292/31/ADD.18 WT/DS293/31/ADD.18)
• The United States thanks the EC for its written status report and its statement today.
• As the DSB has been informed, the EC and Canada have announced an end to their bilateral dispute as between these two parties, without prejudice to their positions on whether the EC has implemented the recommendations and rulings of the DSB.
• Members will recall that there are important differences between the dispute brought by Canada and the dispute brought by the United States. Unfortunately, there is no resolution of the dispute between the EC and the United States.
• First, the dispute brought by Canada addressed only four product-specific instances of undue delay. Each one of those four products was a variety of oilseed rape, used in the production of what is commonly known as Canola oil.
• In contrast, the dispute brought by the United States was much broader in scope, covering all of the types of products backed up in the EC approval pipeline as of May 2003, when the dispute was initiated. In particular, the dispute brought by the United States addressed 25 instances of product-specific undue delay, covering a broad range of crops, including soybeans, maize, oilseed rape, cotton, and beets.
• As a result of continuing delays in the approval of these types of products, the EC backlog of pending applications has increased from about 25 in 2003 to approximately 50 today. And as a consequence of the delays and the resulting backlog, products of agricultural biotechnology widely consumed and grown in the United States and other countries are banned from entry into the EC.
• In addition, the dispute brought by Canada covered only some of the bans adopted by EC member States on biotech products approved by the EC prior to its adoption of a general moratorium in 1999. In contrast, the dispute brought by the United States covered all of the EC member State bans as of May 2003.
• Most notably, the dispute brought by the United States – but not that brought by Canada – covered Austria’s ban on a maize variety known as Mon 810, which is the only biotech crop currently approved to be grown in the EC.
• As the United States has noted in past DSB meetings, Austria continues to ban the cultivation of this product, and that ban has now spread to additional EC member States. These bans have been maintained and adopted despite that fact that the DSB found that Austria’s ban on this product amounted to a breach of the EC’s obligations set out in the SPS Agreement.
• In sum, the broader set of issues raised in the dispute brought by the United States has not been addressed satisfactorily. As we have noted in the past, as a result of the EC’s actions and the backlog in pending applications, U.S. producers are shut out of what historically had been major U.S. export markets for maize and other important agricultural products.
E. EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES REGIME FOR THE IMPORTATION, SALE AND DISTRIBUTION OF BANANAS: SECOND RECOURSE TO ARTICLE 21.5 BY ECUADOR: STATUS REPORT BY THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES (WT/DS27/96/ADD.6)
• Mr. Chairman, we thank the EC for its status report and statement. We have addressed this item many times in the past, so let me just note the following.
• The reasonable period of time for compliance in this dispute expired more than 10 years ago, on January 1, 1999.
• While we take note of the EC’s efforts to reach agreement with interested parties to resolve the dispute, we also note that the commercial impact of the EC’s non-compliance over this very long period is undeniably large and damaging to a number of WTO Members.
• We therefore call on the EC, once again, to resolve this dispute fully and promptly.
2. UNITED STATES CONTINUED DUMPING AND SUBSIDY OFFSET ACT OF 2000: IMPLEMENTATION OF THE RECOMMENDATIONS ADOPTED BY THE DSB
A. STATEMENTS BY THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES AND JAPAN
• As the United States has already explained at many previous DSB meetings, the President signed the Deficit Reduction Act into law on February 8, 2006. That Act includes a provision repealing the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000. Thus, the United States has taken all actions necessary to implement the DSB’s recommendations and rulings in these disputes.
• We recall, furthermore, that Members, including the EC and Japan, have acknowledged during previous DSB meetings that the 2006 Deficit Reduction Act does not permit the distribution of duties collected on goods entered after October 1, 2007.
• We therefore still do not understand the purpose for which the EC and Japan have inscribed this item today.
• With respect to comments regarding further status reports in this matter, the United States fails to see what purpose would be served by further submission of status reports repeating the progress the United States made in the implementation of the DSB’s recommendations and rulings.
3. UNITED STATES – CERTAIN MEASURES AFFECTING IMPORTS OF POULTRY FROM CHINA
A. REQUEST FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A PANEL BY CHINA (WT/DS392/2)
• We are disappointed that China has chosen to move forward with a request for panel establishment today.
• The United States places great importance on ensuring that its measures relating to food safety are based on science and in compliance with U.S. obligations under the WTO Agreement. Consistently with the SPS Agreement, the United States permits imports of poultry products from all countries for which a determination of equivalence has been made. In this dispute, China challenges the way in which the United States is responding to China’s request for a determination of equivalence.
• In this regard, the relevant U.S. authorities are working together to ensure that the U.S. response to China’s request for a determination of equivalence is based on an objective, science based consideration of all the relevant evidence in a way that is fully consistent with the obligations in the covered agreements. And, contrary to what China appears to believe, nothing in the measure identified by China prevents these U.S. authorities from continuing to work together to reach an objective, science based response to China’s equivalence request that both safeguards human life and health and is consistent with U.S. obligations under the WTO Agreement. Therefore, the United States considers that there is no basis for the claims made by China in its panel request.
• We also have a number of concerns with the way in which China has framed its panel request. For example, the request appears both to include measures that were not consulted upon and to make claims under a covered agreement pursuant to which consultations were neither requested nor held.
• In any event, the measure identified by China will, by its terms, expire at the end of the current U.S. fiscal year on September 30, 2009. An open, public debate is underway in the U.S. Congress as to what conditions, if any, should be attached to the use of appropriated funds in the next fiscal year with respect to the import of poultry products from China.
• For all of the preceding reasons, the United States is not in a position to agree to the establishment of a panel today.