WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  TN/TE/W/76 
30 June 2010 
 (10-3589) 
Committee on Trade and Environment 
Special Session Original:   English 
 
 
 
COMMUNICATION FROM ARGENTINA AND BRAZIL 
 
Environmental Goods and Services  
Paragraph 31(iii)  
 
Special and Differential Treatment 
 
  The following communication, dated 30 June 2010,  has been received from the delegations of 
Argentina and Brazil with the request that it be circulated among the Members of the Committee on 
Trade and Environment in Special Session.   
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 I. INTRODUCTION 
1. The majority of WTO Members are developing countries and as the Preamble to the 
Marrakesh Agreement clearly states “we shall conti nue to make positive efforts designed to ensure 
that developing countries, and especially the least-developed among them, secure a share in the 
growth of world trade commensurate with the needs of their economic development”. 
2. In order to facilitate that objective, the D oha Declaration emphasizes the need to provide 
enhanced market access to developing  countries as well as to increase flows of technology to these 
Members. 
II. PROPOSALS AND RECENT DEVELOPMENTS  
3. The Doha trade mandate states in paragraph 31:  
"With a view to enhancing the mutual supporti veness of trade and environment, we agree to 
negotiations, without prejudging their outcome, on: 
the reduction or, as appropriate, elimination of tariff and non-tariff barriers to environmental 
goods and services. " 
 4. The mandate is not limited to situations in  which the elimination or reduction of trade 
restrictions  would benefit trade  but also the environment and development.  These elements are to be 
taken into account jointly with trade since libera lization by itself does not automatically promote 
development or enhance environmental protection in developing countries.   
5. Unfortunately, the Committee on Trade and Enviro nment in Special Session was not able to 
agree on a definition of environmental goods or servi ces. This would have greatly facilitated the task 
of the negotiators.  TN/TE/W/76 
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  6. Through the trade and environment negotia tions four approaches were introduced by 
Members.  These are:  the List approach
1, the Project approach2, the Integrated approach3, and the 
Request and offer methodology4.    
7. The List approach proposes the negotiation of a single list of goods to be liberalized by all 
Members. The goods presented by the proponents incl ude mainly products of their export interest. 
Several of those goods have a dual or multiple u se. Though these items may be utilized for an 
environmental purpose, other industrial applications of such goods are also significant. Some of them 
can not even be considered to be pre dominantly used for environmental purposes. 
8. The Project approach suggests that a potentially wide array of both goods and services could 
be temporarily liberalized for the duration of a project seeking to fulfil a specific environmental 
objective. 
9. The Integrated approach uses elements of the List approach and the Project approach. Under 
the integrated approach national authorities would decide whether to temporarily reduce/eliminate 
tariffs for environmental goods used in a particular  environmental project. The integrated approach 
would provide for the multilateral identification of categories of environmental projects and 
"environmental goods" that could be included in those projects. Document TN/TE/W/74 provides a 
specific example of the implementation of the Inte grated approach to climate change regarding 
projects under the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).5   
10. The Request and Offer methodology requires that  participants ask for tariff concessions in 
goods of their interest that they consider to be environmental goods. Under this traditional method of 
negotiation, bilaterally exch anged concessions would be s ubsequently multilateralized. 
11. In summary, in the last years there have b een long debates around various approaches but no 
agreement has yet emerged. More discussions will be needed to fulfil the mandate having especially 
in mind the development dimension, the special and differential treatment, and the principle of less 
than full reciprocity.  
III. THE NEED TO ADDRESS SPECIAL AND DIFFERENTIAL TREATMENT 
12. It should be borne in mind that the negotiations  of environmental goods and services are also 
guided by paragraph 50 of the Doha Ministerial Declaration:  "The negotiations and the other aspects 
of the Work Programme shall take fully into accoun t the principle of special and differential treatment 
for developing and least-developed countries… " 
13. The Committee on Trade and Environment in Spec ial Session has held several formal and 
informal meetings but considered few written c ontributions related to special and differential 
treatment.6  Time and effort allocated by Members to th is important matter seems not to be enough. 
14. We believe that a substantive debate on sp ecial and differential treatment as well as on the 
transfer of environmentally sound technologies to developing countries is needed.  
                                                      
1 JOB(07)/54;  TN/TE/W/57; TN/TE/W/57Corr. 1; TN/TE/W/56; TN/TE/W/52; TN/TE/W/50; 
TN/TE/W/49;  TN/TE/W/49/Rev.1; TN/TE/W/49/Rev.2; TN/TE/W/48; TN /TE/W/47; TN/TE/W/47/Add.1;  
TN/TE/W/46; TN/TE/W/44; TN/ TE/W/44/Corr.1; TN/TE/W/38; TN/TE/W/34; TN/TE/W/19;  
TN/TE/W/19/Corr.1; TN/TE/W/8;  TN/TE/W/6, TN/TE/W75. 
2 TN/TE/W/67; TN/TE/W/60; TN/TE/W/54; TN/TE/W/51. 
3 TN/TE/W/62; JOB(07)/77. 
4 JOB/(07)/146. 
5 TN/TE/W/74. 
6 TN/TE/W/73; TN/TE/W/69; TN/ TE/W/55;  (JOB(06)/194).   TN/TE/W/76 
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  15. Having this in mind, we include some ideas in th e Annex to this document that may be useful 
for an exchange of views on possible Guidelines that would contribute to the realization of the special 
and differential treatment principle in the negotia tion. These Guidelines are without prejudice of the 
approaches supported by Members in the context of  the negotiations under paragraph 31 (iii) of the 
Doha Declaration. 
 
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 TN/TE/W/76 
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  ANNEX 
 
Guidelines for Trade and Environment Negotiations
 
 
 
The following guidelines apply under any approach:  
 
General guidelines:  
 
1. The negotiations should take fully into account th e special needs and interests of developing 
countries. 
2.  The principles of special and differential treatment and less than full reciprocity should apply 
in all reduction commitments of developing countries. 
3. Due flexibility should be recognized to de veloping countries allowing them progressive 
liberalization of environmental goods and services as a means of promoting their economic growth.  
4. The reduction or, as appropriate, elimination of tariffs should be commensurate with the level 
of economic development, national objec tives and needs of developing countries. 
Special guidelines:  
 
5. Tariff reductions levels for developing countries should be substantively less than those of 
developed countries.  
6. Developing countries should be allowed to adapt the scope of their liberalization 
commitments to their development and trade needs.   
7. Developing countries should be allowed to ex clude products of development interest from 
trade liberalization. 
8. Longer implementation periods for goods and services to be liberalized by developing 
countries should apply. 
9.  On products of export interest to developing countries, developed countries should consider 
reducing considerably or, as appropriate, elimin ate tariff and non-tariff barriers over a shorter 
implementation period. 
10. At the request of the importing Member, data  and information concerning any subsidies to 
developers, suppliers and traders of environmen tal goods should be provi ded previously to any 
reduction or elimination of tariffs by developing countries. 
11. Upon request, developed countries should provide information to  enable developing countries 
to better assess available environmentally sound t echnologies in a given field as well as to properly 
apply and manage them to suit their sp ecific development needs and priorities.  
 
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