WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONWT/CTE/GEN/4
20 November 2002
(02-6437)
Committee on Trade and Environment Original:  English
UNEP STATEMENT
Statement by the UNEP at the Regular Session
of the Committee on Trade and Environment of 8 October 2002
Items 1 & 5
1. This statement on behalf of UNEP has been developed in the context of our preparations for
the MEA-UNEP sponsored meeting that will be held on 11 November, immediately prior to the
Special Session of the CTE Information Session for MEAs.  It also relates to items on the agenda of
this regular session of the CTE.  While this remains a statement from UNEP, it reflects many of the
points emerging from consultations with colleagues from MEA Secretariats on these issues.
2. UNEP first wishes to acknowledge the cooperation of the WTO Secretariat, which is
facilitating the organization of the 11 November MEA-UNEP meeting on Enhancing MEA and WTO
Information Exchange.  This cooperation is a concrete expression of that required between
intergovernmental organizations with differing mandates and competencies, if the international
community is to secure sustainable development.  It  is in line with the Plan of Implementation agreed
by governments at the recent World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), which calls for
strengthened “cooperation among UNEP and other United Nations bodies and specialized agencies,
the Bretton Woods institutions and WTO, within their mandates”.  It is also a concrete expression of
the Doha Declaration’s call to “promote cooperation between WTO and relevant international
environmental and development organizations”.
3. UNEP also welcomes the recent initiative by WTO members to improve de-restriction of
documents relating to CTE deliberations, including country positions prepared for the CTESS.  In theabsence of observer status for those Special Sessions we would like also to request that this
derestriction be extended to the minutes of the CTESS.
4. For UNEP, granting observer status for MEA Secretariats and UNEP to the ongoing
negotiations in the CTESS remains a priority.  Observer status would enable MEAs and UNEP to
better inform the WTO and its members on issues of substance relevant to their discussions. It wouldalso enable MEA Secretariats to inform the COPs and subsidiary bodies of their agreements of
relevant developments in the WTO. This channel, flowing in the “real time” of WTO negotiations
would complement national coordination mechanisms  between trade and environmental ministries.
And it would undoubtedly help improve that coordination, and facilitate design of policies supportive
of sustainable development.  It would also enable these WTO negotiations to address issues ofcommon interest to both regimes, in a reciprocal and mutually advantageous manner.
5. Cooperation and interaction between MEAs, the WTO and UNEP are relevant to a range of
other elements of the Doha Work Programme, being discussed in this regular session of the CTE.
6. First of all, paragraph 33 cites the need for capacity building activities on trade and
environment.  The MEA Secretariats and UNEP are already collaborating with the WTO in its
programme of regional seminars on trade and environment.  Officials from various MEA Secretariats
and UNEP have participated actively in regional seminars conducted in Zimbabwe, Malta, Singapore,WT/CTE/GEN/4
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Namibia, St. Lucia, and Latvia, since February  1999.  The presence and presentations of those
secretariats, together with those of officials from UNCTAD and the WTO, has been welcomed by the
participating national officials in all those cases.
7. In the coming months, UNEP hopes to expand those activities at national and regional levels
in partnership with the MEAs, WTO and UNCTAD.   In Fiji, in late November, UNCTAD and UNEP
will hold a training workshop back-to-back with the WTO Regional Seminar, as part of the
programme of their Capacity Building Task Force on Trade, Environment and Development (CBTF).
UNEP is also following up on recommendations, which emerged from its workshops on capacity
building held in Geneva and Washington in March and July respectively.  These initiatives have
moved beyond information exchange to deliver activities and outputs which enhance countries’
capacity to analyse and respond to interactions between trade, environment and development policy.
For example, UNEP’s ongoing work on integrated assessment of trade related policies can also makean important contribution to the sharing of expertise and experience on environmental reviews among
WTO members, as called for under Paragraph 33.
8. Second, MEA Secretariats and UNEP have knowledge and expertise to contribute on issues
being discussed under paragraph 32 of the Doha Ministerial Declaration.  Environmental labelling is a
tool that can contribute to implementation of MEAs.  Issues of labelling have been specifically raisedby the Secretariats of the CITES and Ramsar Conventions in discussions on this policy interface.
Furthermore, labelling is explicitly referred to in the programme of work on incentive measures of the
Convention on Biological Diversity, and is a t ool that will also play an important role in
implementation of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety.  Information exchange and observer status
would help promote understanding of the relationships between WTO and MEA discussions oflabelling by, for example, enabling UNEP and the MEA Secretariats to contribute their experience
and studies on the design and application of eco-labelling schemes.
9. Third, provisions of TRIPS Agreement are of considerable interest to the secretariats of those
MEAs in which technology transfer will play a significant role in reducing pollution of the global
environment, as well as to the Convention on Biological Diversity in the context of access and benefitsharing of genetic resources, and in the protection of biodiversity-related traditional knowledge.
Enhanced information exchange and observer status in areas relating to intellectual property could
benefit all WTO members by helping to identify areas of synergy between the WTO and MEAs.
10. Fourth, understanding the effects of environmental measures on market access, particularly
for developing and least developed countries, is also of importance to MEA negotiators responsible
for designing policy tools for the implementation of those agreements, including economic
instruments and other trade-related measures.  The research being conducted through UNEP’sWorking Group on Economic Instruments, including in the context of MEA implementation, and the
paper that the CITES Secretariat will submit to their Conference of the Parties (COP) in Santiago de
Chile in November, are cases in point.
11. We believe enhanced cooperation, information exchange and observer status thus has strong
potential to yield concrete benefits to all countries, and especially developing ones.  This is in linewith calls in the Doha Ministerial Declaration and the WSSD Plan of Implementation to increase
market access for developing countries.
12. Access and observer status are, of course, not a one-way street.  In this regard, UNEP believes
that the initiatives taken by the WTO Secretariat to provide information to MEA COPs and Subsidiary
Bodies are an important advance.  Examples are the side events hosted by the WTO Secretariat atCBD COP 6 in The Hague as well as at the forthcoming COP of CITES in Santiago de Chile.  We
would encourage WTO members to support these endeavours, and explore their full potential in other
relevant fora.  The Governing Council of UNEP, and the COPs of most if not all MEAs, haveWT/CTE/GEN/4
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extended and will continue to extend an open invitation to WTO Secretariat officials to observe and
participate in their meetings.
13. While all these secretariats are making the most of existing information channels, UNEP
believes that it remains vital to secure an early harvest on the issues of information exchange and
criteria for observer status contained in paragraph 31(ii).  We consider that these ongoing negotiationsshould not preclude the granting of observer status to the CTESS for those MEAs that have been
invited on a consistent basis to the regular session of the CTE and to MEA Information Sessions.
UNEP believes that pragmatic solutions are also needed to pending requests for observer status in all
other relevant WTO Committees – WTO negotiations will simply be better informed if MEAs are on
hand to observe and offer technical clarifications whenever those might be required.
14. UNEP looks forward to more detailed information exchange, greater transparency and the
deeper collaboration between MEAs, the WTO and UNEP that should emerge from negotiationsmandated under paragraph 31(ii).  We also hope that all WTO Committees that consider that MEAs or
UNEP have relevant analysis, experience with policy tools or other information to contribute to their
discussions or negotiations will not hesitate to request that information, as the TRIPS Council has
recently done from the CBD Secretariat.
15. Discussions during the preparations for the WSSD, and the outcome of that summit, made it
clear that more cooperation and information exchange is required between international institutions
responsible for the different elements of sustainable development.  We should be translating
information exchange into practical mechanisms which allow substantive inputs and practical
experience to be exchanged between trade and envi ronmental bodies, so as to develop the capacity of
all countries to design and implement mutually supportive trade and environment policies.
16. Trade is identified as an absolutely central means of implementation for sustainable
development in the Plan of Implementation agreed in Johannesburg last month.  Thus it is clear that
the multilateral institutions responsible for trade a nd the environment have an obligation to intensify
their cooperation and information exchange.  UNE P looks forward to meeting that obligation, in
partnership with the WTO and MEAs, so that these negotiations can reaffirm that the relationshipbetween MEAs and the WTO is built on their equal status in international law, their unique and
multilateral features, and their respective areas of competence.
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