As delivered
1. UNITED STATES – CERTAIN COUNTRY OF ORIGIN LABELLING (COOL) REQUIREMENTS
A. JOINT REQUEST BY CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES FOR A DECISION BY THE DSB (WT/DS384/11)
B. JOINT REQUEST BY MEXICO AND THE UNITED STATES FOR A DECISION BY THE DSB (WT/DS386/10)
• The United States is joining Canada and Mexico in asking that the DSB agree to provide additional time for adoption or appeal of the panel reports in these disputes by adopting the draft decision set forth in document WT/DS384/11 and the draft decision in document WT/DS386/10.
• The Appellate Body has informally requested the parties to delay any appeal in these disputes to allow it to better manage its
current workload and complete pending appeals from 2011.
• As Canada and Mexico have expressed, and as has been stated at several previous DSB meetings, the United States views such DSB decisions as exceptional in nature and taken in response to the unusual circumstances faced by the Appellate Body and WTO Members today.
• After discussions with Canada and Mexico, the United States agreed to join in making these requests. The draft decisions would
provide for DSB adoption of the panel reports by negative consensus no later than March 23, 2012.
• We would therefore would appreciate the DSB’s support for the draft decisions.