WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  WT/REG/W/54/Rev.2 
10 November 2010 
 (10-6015) 
Committee on Regional Trade Agreements  Original:   English 
 
 
 
CROSS CUTTING ISSUES ON RTAS 
 
Communication from Argentina;  Australia;  Canada ;  Chile;  China;  Hong Kong, China;  India;  
Japan;  New Zealand and the Republic of Korea  
 
Revision  
 
  The following communication, dated 4 June 201 0 has been received from the Delegations of 
Argentina;  Australia;  Canada;  Chile;  China;  Hong Kong, China;  India;  Japan, New Zealand and 
the Republic of Korea.  
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I. BACKGROUND 
1. The Committee on Regional Trade Agreements (CRTA) has a mandate "to consider the 
systemic implications of [RTAs] and regional initiatives for the multilateral trading system".   
2. More recently, Members have expressed support for the CRTA undertaking this type of work. 
 - In his Summary on 2 December 2009, th e Chairman of the Seventh Ministerial 
Conference noted that "while the WTO tr ansparency mechanism had worked quite 
well, there is still room for improvement , through … highlighting better the common 
elements in different RTAs".  
 
 - At the Trade Policy Review Body on 22 January 2010, the Chairperson summarized 
Members’ discussions by noting that "on RT As, I sense that there is support among 
the Membership for a more focused work pr ogramme on this issue, and I will suggest 
to the Chairman of the CRTA that he conduc ts consultations on how to take that work 
programme forward". 
 
3. We thank the previous and current Chairp ersons of the CRTA for their continued 
consultations on this issue and hope that this pr oposal can form the basis for the CRTA undertaking 
this valuable work.  
II. CROSS-CUTTING ELEMENTS OF RTAS 
4. We support the RTAs transparency mechanism a nd look forward to its permanent adoption as 
part of the overall results of the Doha Round.  The RTAs transparency m echanism has been very 
useful at shedding light on the key elements of individual RTAs.  The purpose of this proposal is to 
use the information gathered in the CRTA, including  under the transparency mechanism, to improve 
our knowledge of the cross-cutting elements of RTAs. WT/REG/W/54/Rev.2 
Page 2 
 
 
  5. The number of RTAs is growing and an increased  percentage of world trade is occurring 
under RTAs.  As of 31 July 2010, 474 RTAs, coun ting goods and services notifications separately, 
have been notified to the GATT/WTO. Of  those, 193 are currently in force. 
6. When adopting the Transparency Mechanis m in 2006, WTO Members agreed that 
“…enhancing transparency in, and understanding of, RT As and their effects is of systemic interest 
and will be of benefit to all Members”.1 While Members now have a better understanding of the 
details of notified RTAs (thanks to the RTAs tr ansparency mechanism), there is less information 
available on horizontal aspects of those agreements.   
7. We believe it would be useful for Members to have access to factual reports on how different 
elements of RTAs are dealt with across agreements .  These reports would inform Members’ trade and 
development strategies and their analysis of RTAs' interaction with the multilateral trading system.  
These factual reports would resemble the papers prep ared by the Secretariat in 2002 on rules of origin 
regimes (WT/REG/W/45) and coverage of RTAs (WT/REG/W/46).  These papers would form the 
basis of discussions in the CRTA where Members could share their views.   
8. While other international organisations also play  a useful role on RTAs, we believe that the 
WTO is the best place for this work as the WTO has an explicit mandate to consider how RTAs 
interact with the multilateral trading system and it has the most raw data on RTAs.  The WTO should 
use its comparative advantage in this field to unde rtake more detailed work.  This would not duplicate 
work being done elsewhere, but rather would complement it from a WTO point of view. 
9. This work is not intended to change WTO disciplines on RTAs – only the Rules Negotiating 
Group has a mandate to do that.  Nevertheless, th e information gathered could make a valuable 
contribution to Members’ understanding of RTAs and to their discussions on RTAs in the Rules 
Negotiating Group.   
III. PROPOSAL 
10. In view of these considerations, we propose that  Members agree to resume and re-energise the 
CRTA's work on horizontal, cross-cutting elements of  RTAs.  This work would be based on factual, 
descriptive papers prepared by th e Secretariat as outlined below. 
11. Thus, we propose that the following approach  should form the basis of our work.   
 - It would be based on papers, prepared by the Secretariat on its own responsibility, on 
horizontal, cross-cutting issues.   
  - The papers would be descriptive and factua l in nature;  they would not contain value 
judgments or legal analysis and would not single out or compare particular Members 
or RTAs. 
 
 - It would be based on all notified RTAs that are in force. 
  - It would be a comprehensive exercise which would look horizontally at all issues 
listed in the contents list of factual presentations. 
  - It would  not replace the work of the Rules Negotiating Group on RTAs. 
 
                                                     
 
1 WT/L/671.  WT/REG/W/54/Rev.2 
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   - It would  not create new legal rules or obligations on RTAs. 
 
 - It would  not create de facto  benchmarks for RTAs. 
 
 - We do not envisage that this work would create resource problems for the Secretariat.  
However, if a conflict of resources did arise, the Secretariat would prioritise the 
regular work of the CRTA over this work program 
  - These reports would not duplicate work being done by other organisations.  
Rather, work being done elsewhere would be referenced as part of these reports. 
 
 
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