./.WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONWT/GC/W/505
21 July 2003
(03-3911)
General Council
24-25 July 2003
WORK PROGRAMME ON ELECTRONIC COMMERCE
Dedicated Discussions under the auspices of the General Council
on Cross-Cutting Issues related to Electronic Commerce
Draft Report to the 24-25 July Meeting of the General Council
1. At the Fourth Session of the Ministerial Confer ence in Doha, Ministers agreed to continue the
Work Programme on Electronic Commerce, and instructed the General Council to consider the mostappropriate institutional arrangements for handling the Work Programme and to report on further
progress to the Fifth Session of the Ministerial Conference.
2. At its meeting on 15 October 2002 the General Council agreed to maintain, for the duration of
the work until the Fifth Ministerial Conference, the institutional arrangements that had been in placefor handling the Work Programme, i.e. that the C ouncils for Trade in Services, Trade in Goods and
TRIPS, and the Committee on Trade and Development would examine and report on aspects of
electronic commerce relevant to their respective areas of competence, and the General Council would
play a central role in the entire process, would keep the Work Programme under continuous review
and would consider any trade-related issue of a cross-cutting nature.
3. The present report covers the General Council's examination of cross-cutting issues related to
electronic commerce that has been carried out since the Doha Ministerial Declaration in dedicated
discussions under the auspices of the General Council.  There have been four such meetings on the
following dates:  6 May 2002;  25 October 2002;  27 February 2003;  16 May and 11 July 2003.
4. The summaries prepared by the Secretariat of the issues raised at these dedicated discussions
are contained in documents WT/GC/W/475, 486, 492 and 505.
5. The following issues were discussed:  classification of the content of certain electronic
transmissions;  development-related issues;  fiscal implications of e-commerce;  imposition of
customs duties on electronic transmissions;  competition;  jurisdiction and applicable law/other legalissues;  general objectives to be applied to the consideration of e-commerce;  format for reports on the
dedicated discussions.
6. Submissions were considered in the course of these dedicated discussions from the following
Members:  Japan – Japan’s international cooperation on information technology (WT/L/451); Canada– the classification of software delivered electronically (Job No.(02)38);  United States – general
objectives to be applied to the consideration of e-commerce (WT/GC/W/493);  the European
Communities – the classification issue (WT/GC/W/497).  In addition, the WTO Secretariat submitted
a background note on the classification issue (Job No.(02)37).
7. Participants in the dedicated discussions are of the view that the examination of cross-cutting
issues related to electronic commerce is not yet complete, and that further work to clarify these issuesWT/GC/W/505
Page 2
is needed.  Accordingly, and having regard to paragraph 34 of the Doha Ministerial Declaration, the
General Council should consider whether to recommend  continuing the examination of all trade-
related issues relating to electronic commerce under the ongoing Work Programme on Electronic
Commerce with the current institutional arrangemen ts, having the General Council report on further
progress to the next Ministerial Session, and maintaining Members’ current practice of not imposingcustoms duties on electronic transmissions until the next Ministerial Session.
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