Dispute settlement understanding talks among World Trade Organization members has been very "intense," though the large issues remain unresolved, Maria Pagan, deputy U.S. trade representative and chief of mission in the Geneva office, said Nov. 20. Speaking at an event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies on the upcoming 13th Ministerial Conference, Pagan said discussions started by acknowledging the different parties' interests as opposed to putting text on the table and hashing out the deal.

The World Trade Organization's Committee on Customs Valuation, meeting Nov. 15, adopted changes to "leverage digital tools more effectively" and adopt the eAgenda platform, which "facilitates for delegations the preparation and follow-up of meetings," the WTO announced. The members also agreed that the Secretariat would organize introductory sessions and post information on the Secretariat's website describing the committee's work "with a view to enhancing transparency."

The U.S. interpretation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade's Article XXI(b) -- which governs trade moves made for national security -- as being wholly self-judging "is unsupported by the text, context, object and purpose, and negotiating history" of the article, four Akin Gump lawyers said in a working paper under the auspices of the Geneva Graduate Institute Centre for Trade and Economic Integration.

World Trade Organization committees could offer a path beyond the Dispute Settlement Body to settle trade-related issues, Baker McKenzie lawyers said in a Nov. 13 blog post. For instance, the Anti-Dumping Practices and Subsidies and Countervailing Measures committees offer a forum to settle "practical and strategic issues" faced by companies engaged in international trade, the post said.

World Trade Organization Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Iceland's Einar Gunnarsson, chair of the fisheries subsidies negotiations, emphasized the December deadline for members to complete "text-based work for new disciplines on subsidies contributing to overcapacity and overfishing," the WTO said. The DG and committee chair made their comments during the Nov. 6-10 "Fish Week" negotiations, the seventh of their kind, that saw members hold talks on "how the draft disciplines and the provisions for special and differential treatment could be operationalized."

Turkey launched a safeguard investigation on wire rods, it notified the World Trade Organization's Committee on Safeguards on Nov. 3. Turkey said that interested parties can download questionnaires from the investigation page and submit a completed copy to the General Directorate within 30 days from the date the notification was published.

World Trade Organization Deputy Director-General Xiangchen Zhang, in a Nov. 3 report and during a workshop, offered ways for least developed countries to boost their integration into the global trading system, the WTO announced. The report said LDCs should keep building momentum in agriculture talks at the WTO, work with development partners to "overcome domestic and external obstacles to LDCs' increased participation in global trade in services" and actively engage in trade talks.

A recently introduced Senate bill that would impose an import pollution fee likely violates World Trade Organization rules, Simon Lester, former legal affairs officer at the WTO Appellate Body Secretariat, said in a blog post.

The World Trade Organization on Oct. 31 launched an import licensing portal to allow members to draft and submit notifications online. The platform, released during the Committee on Import Licensing Procedures' Oct. 31 meeting, will provide members an "improved database of all import licensing procedures" of WTO countries, allowing members to search by country, product and legislation. Members can assign different levels of access to national authorities to draft, edit or submit their notifications, as well as use the portal to communicate and swap draft notifications and comments with the WTO Secretariat. During the committee meeting, members also reviewed 42 notifications of import licenses, WTO said.

The World Trade Organization said its working group on food security is aiming for the end of November to reach consensus on a final set of recommendations for least-developed countries (LDCs) and net food-importing developing countries (NFIDCs). During the working group's Oct. 31 meeting, participating members revised a report from the group's coordinator, Norway's Kjetil Tysdal, which covers four areas: "access to international food markets, financing of food imports, agricultural and production resilience of LDCs and NFIDCs, and horizontal, cross-cutting issues," the WTO said. Tysdal said he will make further revisions in the "coming days," noting the final meeting is set for Nov. 13, when the group is expected to finalize its recommendations for the full Committee on Agriculture's approval. The committee will meet Nov. 27-29.