India will appeal a World Trade Organization panel report in a case brought by Japan on India's tariff treatment of various information technology products, the WTO announced. But because of the U.S. refusal to seat members on the Appellate Body, the case will stall pending any change in the AB's situation. In the case, the panel said that India's duties violated the WTO tariff commitments under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and Article II of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (see 2304170018).

Argentina launched a World Trade Organization dispute over U.S. antidumping measures on Argentinian oil country tubular goods.

World Trade Organization members negatively affected by national security-related trade restrictions may be able to impose retaliatory measures as a way to address the U.S. gripe with the body's review of national security issues, former Office of the U.S. Trade Representative counsel Warren Maruyama and former WTO deputy director-general Alan Wolff said. In a working paper released by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Maruyama and Wolff propose a compromise to the U.S. position that national security claims are nonreviewable.

The United Arab Emirates formally accepted the Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies, making it the seventh World Trade Organization member to deposit its instrument of acceptance. The trade body requires a two-thirds threshold for the agreement to come into effect. The U.S., Canada, Iceland, Seychelles, Singapore and Switzerland previously accepted the agreement (see 2305100009).

World Trade Organization members held a third round of consultations May 8-11 covering the progress made in undertaking the Work Program of the 12th Ministerial Conference Sanitary and Phytosanitary Declaration, which is meant to address challenges in implementing the Agreement on the Application of SPS Measures. Members laid out proposals to boost the functioning of the committee's work on food safety and animal and plant health, WTO said.

Iceland is the sixth World Trade Organization member to accept the Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies, which needs acceptance from two-thirds of WTO members to come into effect. Iceland also agreed to donate over $562,000 to the WTO Fisheries Funding Mechanism, which provides technical assistance and capacity building to aid developing nations implement the agreement, the WTO said May 10. "Iceland has offered the world important lessons in sustainable fish stock management through successful policy reform, making their early support for the agreement and the funding mechanism especially valuable," WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said.

Representatives from Chile and South Korea introduced the latest version of a draft agreement on investment facilitation for development during a May 4 plenary meeting after two days of consultations at the World Trade Organization. The WTO said the goal is to finish negotiations by mid-year.

The chair of the World Trade Organization's Committee on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures urged all WTO members to submit missing subsidy notifications as soon as possible. Chair Sally Bardayan Rivera of Panama, during a May 2 meeting, said 88 members have yet to submit their 2021 notifications, which were due by the middle of 2021. Seventy-five members have not submitted their 2019 subsidy notifications, while 64 have yet to submit their 2017 notifications. "Eight delegations took the floor to urge members to step up their efforts and ensure both timely submission of notifications as well as complete notifications," WTO said.

While the Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement (MPIA), an alternative to the World Trade Organization's Appellate Body, may work for the nations that want an appellate level of review of WTO panel decisions, it doesn't necessarily make sense for U.S. purposes, said Jamieson Greer, former chief of staff for the U.S. trade representative and partner at King & Spalding. Speaking at a May 8 Federalist Society event, Greer said that if the U.S. wanted another level of review at the WTO, the government would simply just start staffing up the AB again rather than pursue a solution under the MPIA.

World Trade Organization members during April 25-28 "Fish Week" talks showed a willingness to embark on text-based negotiations on fisheries subsidies talks, the WTO said. While the first Fish Week, held in March (see 2303270014), centered on what members wanted to see from the second phase of the talks, the second Fish Week looked at how these objectives would be achieved via bilateral consultations, small group meetings and two plenary meetings, the WTO said.