RESTRICTED  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  S/WPDR/M/44 
4 June 2010 
 (10-3092) 
Working Party on Domestic Regulation  
  
 
REPORT OF THE MEETING HELD ON 27 APRIL 2010 
 
Note by the Secretariat
1 
  
1. The Working Party on Domestic Regulation (WPDR) held a meeting on 27 April 2010.  The 
meeting was opened by Ms Misa ko Takahashi (Japan) and was chaired by Mr. Ahmad Mukthar 
(Pakistan) after his election.  The agenda for the meeting was contained in Airgram WTO/AIR/3537, 
dated 14 April 2010, and was adopted.
 
A. APPOINTMENT OF THE CHAIRPERSON FOR THE WORKING PARTY 
2. The outgoing Chairperson  stated that according to the Rul es of Procedure, the Working Party 
was to elect its Chairperson at the first meeting of the year, effective at the end of that meeting.  
However, at the last meeting on 2 February 2010, consultations on the matter of Chairpersonships had 
not been completed, and the Working Party had thus  agreed to postpone the election of the Working 
Party's Chair for 2010 to the beginning of today's meeting, after the adoption of the agenda.  
3. The outgoing Chairperson expressed the view that the Working Party had made some 
progress over the last year.  She noted that further to a request by Members at the last meeting, she 
had prepared an Annotated Text (Room Docume nt, dated 14 March 201 0), which presented an 
inventory of past discussions, and contained a numbe r of personal reflections that she submitted with 
a view to facilitating further discussion of the issu es.  She hoped that delegations would find the 
document to serve as a useful input to the ne gotiations on disciplines on domestic regulation. 
4. The Working Party elected Mr. Ahmad Mukthar (Pakistan) by acclamation. 
B. DEVELOPMENT OF REGULATORY DISCIPLINES UNDER GATS ARTICLE VI:4  
5. The Working Party addressed the agenda item in informal mode.  The Chair stated that he 
would prepare an informal summary of the deliberations, under his own responsibility.   
C. FUTURE WORK 
6. The Chairman  recalled that over the course of the last year, the Working Party had conducted 
chapter-by-chapter discussions of th e Chairman's revised draft text.  During that period, additional 
text proposals had been submitted, and the Working Pa rty had now at its disposal also the Annotated 
Text which took stock of the work carried out over the last year.  The question now was how to proceed best with the work at hand, in light of  the mandate of the Working Party.  He invited 
comments by delegations on the focus of work ov er the coming months, and the frequency of 
meetings.  On the basis of these comments, it was his intention to consult indi vidually with interested 
delegations over the coming weeks and present the Working Party with a work plan in due course. 
                                                     
 
1 This document has been prepared under the Secret ariat's own responsibility and without prejudice to 
the positions of Members and to their rights and obligations under the WTO. S/WPDR/M/44 
Page 2  
  7. The representative of Australia
 suggested that future work be conducted on a thematic and 
cross-cutting basis.  She believed that there was a consensus on this question, and indeed to some 
extent this idea was reflect ed in the Annotated Text, which took a very strategic approach to analyzing 
the issues under-pinning the textual proposals, in that it grouped similar or related proposals and provisions.  As for concrete topics for discussion, sh e suggested to address first the issue of soft-law, 
on which the Secretariat's impendi ng paper might be another useful tool.  Secondly, the Working 
Party might undertake a discussion of provisions in th e text that relate to the GATS, and examine the 
level of ambition or obligation in the disciplines.  So me of the paragraphs to be looked at in a cross-
cutting way would be paragraphs 2, 10, 12, 42, 44, 46, 47 and 48 – all of which dealt in some way 
with the level of ambition or obligation that Me mbers would be undertaking in the disciplines.  
Thirdly, she suggested to look at the operational chap ters together with the respective definitions.  For 
example, chapters V-VIII should be taken together with  their respective definitions in paragraphs 5, 6, 
7 and 8.  Chapter 9 on technical standards should be taken up with paragr aph 9 which contains a 
definition of technical standards.  Fourthly, a discussion might be held on the definitions chapter itself and its relation to the rest of the text, and the qu estion whether there might be additional terms in the 
text that required a definition. 
8. Her delegation was of the view that some questi ons could not be resolved in larger meeting 
configurations.  She encouraged th e Chairman to advance the work in different types of formats, 
including through small group consu ltations which might be better suited to address some of the more 
technical issues.  She informed the Working Part y the proponents of the Room Document circulated 
on 1 February 2010 had undertaken a programme of consultations with a range  of delegations on the 
proposal.  To date, these consultations had been very  enlightening and constructive.  Some points of 
difference remained, naturally, and all participants had agreed to reflect further on certain technical 
issues.  However, it seemed that there were fewer substantive unresolved issues than one might have 
expected based on the way discussions went in the open-ended meetings.  She expected to continue 
this dialogue and to expand it to include other interested Members. 
9. The representative of New Zealand
 expressed her openness to different formats and 
approaches but supported Australia's view that a constructive way would be to approach the 
discussions thematically, or by grouping together  common elements of the text which may be 
accompanied by language proposals from interested pa rties.  Some of the issues had already been 
outlined, such as the use of soft-law language, a discussion on the relationship between text proposals 
and the existing GATS provisions in terms of mee ting the mandate, and reaching some agreement on 
many of the terms including, but not limited to  those in the definitions.  Her delegation had 
participated in the consultations referred to by Australia and was pleased with the positive discussions 
that had resulted.  She considered that there w as more convergence to be achieved on the proposal of 
1 February 2010 and looked forwar d to bringing new ideas to consultations and ultimately to the 
Working Party. 
10. The delegation of Korea  also expressed a preference for a thematic approach that would allow 
addressing various cross-cutting issues.  The earlier chapter-by-chapter discussions had been 
successful in identifying all concerns on each para graph.  But from now on, a more refined and 
organized approach was needed that would allow th e Working Party to approach the disciplines in a 
holistic manner. 
11. The delegation of China  stated that the focus of immediate work should be on horizontal 
issues including soft law language and transparen cy, on which it was relatively easy to build a 
common understanding, and then revert to other technical issues through a thematic approach, 
including development, licensing requirements, licensing procedures, qualification requirements, 
qualification procedures, and technical standards; lastly, discussions should revert to the necessity 
test.   S/WPDR/M/44 
 Page 3 
 
 
12. The delegation of the European Union expressed the view that the Working Party should first 
seek to make progress on the many outstanding technical issues before moving to more controversial politically charged questions.  The format of more thematic discussions seemed very suitable for such 
discussions.   
13. The representative of Bolivia stated that a lot of  work in the different areas of the disciplines 
needed to be undertaken.  In particular the issu e of flexibilities for developing countries in line with 
their level of development should be discussed within the Working Party in the coming months.  Having the same rules for all Members was not a viable solution.  
14. The representative of Japan stressed the importa nce of having horizontal, holistic discussions 
on broader themes such as the definitions, soft la w, qualifications or licences, as well as specific 
discussions on individual elements of the text.   
15. The representative of Indonesia stated that fu ture disciplines had to preserve the right to 
regulate and be mindful of the special needs of developing countries and LDCs, taking into account their level of development.  While acknowledging the merit of having a thematic approach in 
discussing the text, his delegation hoped that a more flexible structure in the upcoming work would be 
taken into account.  
16. The representative of Colombia noted that great er understanding with regard to some of the 
elements of the text was required, including the in ter-relationship of various ch apters of the text.  A 
great deal of work needed to be done in order to reach a satisfactory level of ambition.  He supported 
the view that the discussion continue in a cross-cutti ng way using the thematic issues that had been set 
out by the representative of Australia.   
17. The representative of the United States supported continuing work on the basis of a thematic 
approach.  He suggested to commence with tho se topics that might bring the greatest level of 
consensus first and working towards the more difficult ones later.  He suggested that meetings were to 
take place in parallel with clusters so that capita l representation was available.  His delegation was 
interested in participating in the work in all kinds of formats. 
18. The representative of Chile recalled that several  delegations had referre d to the substantial 
amount of work that the Working Party had to address.  He supported the approach and ideas 
presented by Australia with regard to future work .  One mid-term goal in the work of the Working 
Party was to arrive at a negotiating text whic h expressed the positions of Members through brackets 
or other indications.  
19. The representative of Hong Kong, China supported a thematic approach to continue with the 
negotiations.  Members could use the annotated te xt as the reference document and address the cross-
cutting and thematic issues by extracting common el ements or grouping related topics across the 
disciplines for discussion, such as those suggested by Australia.  The past practice of the Working 
Party to have annotated agendas from the Chair to pr ovide focus to the issues seemed to his delegation 
a very instrumental approach. He encouraged dele gations to revisit earlier negotiating proposals in 
conjunction with the references in the Annotated Text as appropriate.  
20. The Chairman requested Members to take note of the statements made, and reiterated that he 
would consult on the basis of the ideas presented.  S/WPDR/M/44 
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21. It was so agreed. 
D. OTHER BUSINESS 
22. No items were raised under this agenda item. 
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