. /.   WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  TN/DS/20 
26 July 2007 
 (07-3195) 
Dispute Settlement Body 
Special Session  
 
 
SPECIAL SESSION OF THE DISPUTE SETTLEMENT BODY 
 
Report by the Chairman, Ambassador Ronald Saborío Soto,  
to the Trade Negotiations Committee  
 
 
 Since my last written report, the work of the Special Session has continued to be based on 
revised contributions resulting from informal wo rk among Members, building on the work conducted 
earlier.    
 Specifically, in order to further advance towa rds a rapid conclusion of the negotiations as 
mandated,  I have conducted, since the beginning of this year, a series of substantive consultations to 
discuss the revised contributions presented by Members to the Special Session.  In total, seven sets of 
consultations were held between January and July, each over several days.  These informal 
consultations have been conducted in conjunction with regular open-e nded informal meetings of the 
Special Session, both in order to allow the introducti on of  revised contributions and for transparency 
purposes to report back on the ongoing consultations.   
  In these consultations, we have considered pr oposals relating to compensation and suspension 
of concessions, flexibility and Member-control, panel composition, post-retaliation, remand, 
sequencing, special and differential treatment, stric tly confidential information, third-party tights, 
time-savings and transparency.   
  Through this process, I believe that we have now essentially achieved our objective of 
examining all the revised contributions presented to the Special Session.   My consultations so far 
suggest to me that we still have plenty of work ahead of us to reach agreement on improvements and 
clarifications of the DSU, both substantively and in terms of legal drafting.  At the same time, I think 
it is also clear from this round of c onsultations that the contributions th at have formed the basis of this 
phase of the process constitute a very sound basis for the further continuation of our work.  The 
African and LDC groups have also indicated that they are still working towards revising their contributions, and I hope that they will be in a positi on to present such revised contributions very soon 
so that these can also be re flected in our further work. 
 
 In this respect, I would like to express my very  sincere appreciation to participants for the 
very constructive manner with which they have engaged in this process.   I think especially that all the 
work conducted by participants prior  to submitting revised proposals, including the sincere 
engagement in informal Member-driven processes su ch as the Mexican group, has greatly contributed 
to the success of this phase of our work.   In par ticular, the effort made by proponents to sincerely 
review and revise their proposals in light of comm ents received from other participants in these 
informal processes has been essential in ensuring that  we have a realistic and constructive basis from 
which to work towards an agreement.  It will re main critical to a successful conclusion of our work 
that we continue to work in this spirit.   TN/DS/20 
Page 2  
 
   From September, building on our work so far, I propose to move to a new stage of the 
negotiation.  This would aim to take the discussion of the various contributions a step further and 
focus more directly on exploring convergences and bridging the gaps that remain in Members' 
positions.  For this purpose, I intend to hold a furthe r series of substantive consultations in various 
formats as necessary.   Of course, as has been th e case over the past few months, meetings of the 
Special Session  in an open-ended format would conti nue to be scheduled to allow the Membership to 
be informed of ongoing work on a regular basis.     In the meantime, I also intend to compile in to a single document all the contributions that 
have formed the basis of our recent work.  I hope that this may help to clarify for all delegations what 
the basis for that work h as been since the beginning of this year, and I think it could also generally 
facilitate the conduct of our work.  I intend to issu e such compilation by the end of this month.  
  Finally, in order to facilitate the efficient resumption of our work after the summer break, I 
think it would be very helpful if the proponents of various contributions coul d think of advancing a 
step further in their own work.  I have therefore asked those proponents whose contribution is not yet 
fully reflected in the from of draft legal text to ma ke every effort to develop such text as appropriate 
so that we can work uniformly from draft legal te xt.  I have also encouraged those proponents whose 
contributions are already in the form of draft lega l text to consider whether any further revision of 
such text might be useful, to reflect further th e discussions and comments received in the course of 
recent consultations.   
 
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