RD/RO/3/Rev.1  10 April 2013 
Committee on Rules of Origin 
UNOFFICIAL ROOM DOCUMENTS 
Revision 
 Documents issued in the RD series are not official WTO documents. They usually appear in 
their language of submission and will not be tran slated systematically into the working languages 
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WORKSHOP ON "NON-PREFERENTIAL RULES OF ORIGIN 
AND LABELLING REQUIREMENTS" 
Communication from El Salvador 
 On 22 October 2012, El Salvador submitted a communication in which it proposed 
organizing a workshop on non-preferential rules of origin and labelling requirements. This proposal 
was discussed during the Committee's informal and formal meetings held in November 2012. 
In order to address comments on this proposal made by various Members during these meetings and others, El Salvador is submitting a revised version of its communication contained in 
document RD/RO/3. 
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The harmonization programme of non-preferential rules of origin was launched 16 years ago. 
Although substantial progress has been made, work has been considerably delayed with respect to 
the time-frame foreseen in the Agreement on Rules of Origin, where the Harmonization Work 
Programme (HWP) was scheduled to be completed in July 1998. The work on the HWP was 
conducted both in the Technical Committee on Rules of Origin (TCRO) in Brussels and the 
Committee on Rules of Origin (CRO) in Geneva. The main work was carried out by TCRO, and the results presented to CRO in June 1999 in the form  of agreed rules (Basket 1) for endorsement, 
and unresolved issues (489) for decision (JOB(01)/52–G/RO/45-series documents). 
The CRO in various meetings endorsed the agreed rules and resolved 324 of the unresolved issues 
referred to it by TCRO, leaving 165 issues current ly outstanding. The HWP requires reaching an 
agreement on specific rules of origin for 2,744 products. To date, not counting the square 
brackets, the CRO has reached consensus on 1,52 8 products, which means that 45% of work on 
product-specific rules is still outstanding.
1  
As stated in document G/RO/W/141, dated 1 November 2012, which contains 
the eighteenth review of the application and operat ion of the provisions of the Agreement on Rules 
of Origin relating to non-preferential rules of origin, 43 Members have notified that they do not 
apply non-preferential rules of origin and approximately 42 Members have not submitted any 
notification on the matter. 
Moreover, the lack of agreement on the "implic ations" issue has hindered progress in the 
harmonization programme of rules, and discussi ons on the programme were suspended in 2007 
when it was agreed that the matter should be brought to the General Council for policy guidance. 
However, no guidance on how to deal with the issue has been offered to date. 
                                               
1 Text taken from document JOB/RO/1, dated 16 June 2010. RD/RO/3/Rev.1 
 
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  El Salvador realizes that the General Council is considering the policy aspects of the "implications" 
issue and that the latter is a sensitive matter for ce rtain Members. It is therefore not our intention 
to address these discussions in the Committee at this time. 
However, we do believe that it is important to launch a discussion in order provide Members with a 
better understanding of non-preferential rules of origin. We therefore ask that a technical 
workshop on non-preferential rules of origin and their relation to origin marking requirements under the TBT Agreement and the intellectual prop erty provisions under the TRIPS Agreement be 
organized during one of the meetings of the Committee on Rules of Origin. 
This request is based on Article 1.2 of the Agreement on Rules of Origin, relating to 
non-preferential rules of origin, which stipulates as follows: "Rules of origin referred to in paragraph 1 shall include all rules of origin used in non-preferential commercial policy instruments, 
such as in the application of […] origin marking requirements under Article IX of GATT 1994 …". 
For the purposes of the exercise, we believe that  it would be very useful to have a factual 
background document, prepared by the Secretaria t, on these two areas, which would probably 
focus on the labelling of textiles, clothing and footwear products and include factual information on 
the discussions held on these questions in the TBT Committee and in other bodies of 
this Organization. 
We could also have presentations from Members that have non-preferential rules of origin regimes 
and encourage experience-sharing. 
Moreover, we believe that it is important to ta ke advantage of the work of and attendance of 
capital-based officials to receive an update on the progress that has been made in the 
harmonization programme based on the mandate set out in the Agreement. 
Our objective is to gain a better understanding of these rules without undermining the position of 
Members, including that of our delegation, with respect to the harmonization programme of rules. 
We also believe that this initiative can revitalize the Committee's discussions as well as our work in 
the future. 
The workshop would constitute a purely technical and educational exercise, during which the 
following topics could be covered: 
- non-preferential rules of origin and labelling requirements, origin marking: what are rules of 
origin, what are they used for, state of play in the harmonization work programme, 
WTO Agreement on Rules of Origin; 
 
- requirements with relation to the determination of origin under the WTO Agreement on 
Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT Agreement): mandatory requirements, requirements with 
relation to labelling (e.g. labelling of textiles, clothing, footwear, and travel goods); 
 - current practice: illustration through th e experiences of two or three Members; 
 
- discussion. 
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