RESTRICTED  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  TN/TF/M/22 
22 January 2008 
 
 (08-0333) 
Negotiating Group on Trade Facilitation  
  
 
SUMMARY MINUTES OF THE MEETING 
 
Held in the Centre William Rappard
 
from 10-14 December 2007  
 
 
Chairman:  H.E. Mr. Eduardo Ernesto Sperisen-Yurt (Guatemala) 
 
 
1. The Chairman  recalled that the proposed agenda fo r the meeting had been circulated in 
WTO/AIR/3128. As Members would have seen from the airgram, the meeting sought to continue the 
recently initiated process of intensified textual wo rk. The session would also address the standing item 
of participation by the Annex D organizations.      
2. The agenda was adopted .  
3. The Chairman  explained the course of the negotiating week. Its general structure resembled 
that of the last session.  As at that time, it was planned for the meeting to open and close in plenary 
mode, leaving the days in between for focussed te xtual work.  Those drafting initiatives were set to 
take place in a variety of formats to ensure ma ximum flexibility. He would chair those sessions in 
open-ended informal mode, working on the textual proposals as contained in the compilation document.  In addition, Members were invited to  engage in further nego tiation amongst themselves, 
focussing on issues requiring additional work.  
4. A report would be provided from his side at the last meeting day, offering a personal 
evaluation of the outcome of the week. This woul d be complemented by a written summary of the 
drafting suggestions made to assist Members with thei r preparations for future negotiating work.       
5. All of this would hopefully lead to anothe r successful meeting that moved the Negotiating 
Group (NG) an additional step forward on its negotia ting path.  He did not have to recall the amount 
of work still ahead and the limited time Members had for its completion.  
6. With respect to the organizational sequencing of the week's working sessions, it was foreseen 
to start with the proposals on GATT Article VIII,  addressing the texts on a chapter-by-chapter (and, 
where applicable, heading-by-heading)  basis.  On Thursday morning, the NG would move to the areas 
of technical assistance, capacity building and S&D. To ensure sufficient time for their discussion and 
to allow for a balanced distribution of overall meet ing time, there would be opportunity to continue 
the deliberations on those matters in the afternoon.    
A. N
EW AND REVISED PROPOSALS  
7. This part of the meeting was conducted in info rmal mode with the exception of the following 
introductions of new submissions: TN/TF/M/22 
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  8. The representative of Japan
 presented proposal TN/TF/W/116/Rev.1, explaining that it 
reflected the feedback offered by other Members on its earlier version TN/TF/W/116. The comments 
had been taken very seriously and had found their wa y into the revised text which was co-sponsored 
by Mongolia. The main changes compared to th e previous version of the document were the 
following: 
9. In paragraph 3 of the preamble, the description concerning S&D and technical 
assistance/capacity building (TA/CB) had been update d and made more comprehensive in order to 
reflect the intensive horizontal discussion held on t hose items since the date of submission of the 
original proposal. Accordingly, original paragraphs 5 and 6 of the "textual proposals" that related to 
S&D had been deleted. 
10. With respect to paragraph 1 of the textual proposals, a comment had been received from a 
Member that the submission could be improved by making it clear that both administrative and 
judicial appeals were available to traders. The wo rding of paragraph 1 of W/ 116/Rev.1 reflected this 
suggestion. At the same time, amendments had been  made in order to limit the eligibility of people  
who could make an appeal, equally reflecting re lated suggestions made in past meetings.  
11. In addition, the term "rulings" had been dele ted as a result of comments made by several 
Members that rulings were not subject to appeal proc edures. A proposal had also been made to delete 
"without penalty".  "Without penalty" purported to en sure that appellants would not be disadvantaged 
by making an appeal, which was important to enhance traders’ comfort. This term was extracted from 
the Agreement on Implementation of Article VII of the GATT 1994 (the Customs Valuation 
Agreement). The note to Article 11 of the Valu ation Agreement explained "without penalty" as 
follows: "'Without penalty' means that the importer sh all not be subject to a fine or threat of fine 
merely because the importer chose to exercise the ri ght of appeal. Payment of normal court costs and 
lawyers’ fee shall not be considered to be a fine."  Paragraph 3 of the note read: "However, nothing in 
Article 11 shall prevent a Member from requiring full payment of assessed customs duties prior to an 
appeal." 
12. With respect to paragraph 2 of the textual pr oposals, a separate paragraph had been inserted 
about the possibility of requiring an administrative appeal prior to a judicial appeal in order to 
establish a more concrete provision on this issue.  
13. Regarding paragraph 3 of the textual proposal, the sponsors had incorporated the suggestion 
by a Member that a reference was necessary to the provision that stipulated means of publication.   
14. In the first sentence of paragraph 4 of the textual proposal, other Members' comments had 
been reflected that it was difficult to establish periods for review and correction of decisions under 
appeal procedures that uniformly applied to all Memb ers. As had been explained several times in the 
past, it was not the intention to establish periods fo r review and correction that uniformly applied to 
all Members.  
15. In the second sentence of paragraph 4, another suggestion had been incorporated according to 
which the appellant should have the right, in case of an undue delay in the administrative appeal 
procedures, to bring the case to the next higher instance. 
16. In paragraph 5 of the textual proposal, the suggestion had been incorporated that it was 
necessary for traders to have opportunities to recei ve information concerning administrative decisions 
such as the reasoning of the decision, including applied laws and regulations. 
17. Many delegations had found the term "complaints" to be misleading which was why it had 
been replaced by "grievances" and "the opportunity to receive information".   TN/TF/M/22 
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  18. Regarding paragraph 6 of the textual proposal , Japan had found at past Negotiating Group 
meetings that many Members misunderstood and co nfused "opportunities to raise complaints" with 
"appeal procedures". Some Members had also point ed out that the relationship between opportunities 
to raise complaints (grievances) and judicial pro cedures was unclear and that informal procedures 
were not suitable for WTO rules.  
19. As it had been explained by Japan many times in the past, it was hoped that all Members fully 
understood the concept of the proposal. But in order to avoid any misunderstanding and confusion, the 
original paragraph 4 (new paragraph 6) had been m odified. It was not the intention to establish a new 
and bureaucratic system. Grievances  would be received, for example, at existing enquiry points, 
divisions, sections of customs and other border ag encies concerned, depending on each Member’s 
situation. The word "grievance" wa s already used in Article 2, paragraph 21, of the Agreement on 
Preshipment Inspection.  
20. The representative of Switzerland  introduced document TN/TF/W/130/Rev.1, explaining that 
it was a revised version of Mongolia's, Norw ay's and Switzerland's earlier proposal on the 
simplification and harmonization of trade documents  that took into account comments that had been 
made in earlier plenary discussions by the Membersh ip.  The authors had not wanted to miss the 
opportunity to prepare this revision for the more focused drafting discussions scheduled to take place that week. 
21. In the revision, a change had been made in pa ragraph 2(iii) the aim of which was to introduce 
an additional qualifier regarding electronic messages by saying that they should be inter-operable. A 
second modification that had been made was to change "trade users" into "trade operators".  This was 
mostly a drafting issue.  A more substantial ch ange related to the sa me paragraph which now 
contained the formulation that "electronic messag es to be interchanged a nd inter-operated .... with 
internationally widely accepted standards for elec tronic information exchange", thereby no longer 
solely referring to the standards recommended by the Customs Co-operation Council.  
22. There were several reasons for the modifications . With respect to the change regarding the 
inter-operationability, it was not merely essential that  electronic messages were interchanged. They 
also had to be inter-operable and therefore reusab le so as to reduce the administrative burden.  The 
Trade Facilitation negotiations in the WTO only looked at a part of trade flows.  As a result, when talking about exchanging messages, it had to be  taken into account that there was a broader 
environment surrounding them and that electronic m essages were also inter-changed within traders, 
shipping companies and the like. It should be possi ble for these kind of messages to be inter-operated 
between the various actors in the logistics chain.  
23. The second modification had been introduced as a result of a comment made at an earlier 
plenary that an exclusive reference to recommenda tions of the Customs Co-operation Council might 
produce outdated results. Technology was moving very  fast and there existed already widely accepted 
standards for the electronic information exchange. But there was no such related decision by the 
Customs Co-operation Council in the WCO.  Th e revision wanted to reflect that fact.  
24. On paragraph 2(ii), it was absolutely necessar y that everybody used the same kind of 
elements.  The UN Trade Data Elements Directory (UNTDED) consisted of standardized data elements which permitted to make the information exchange inter-c hangeable and inter-operable.  
25. Reference had also been made in the Trade Facilitation negotiations to "UNeDocs" or the 
WCO Data Model.  While this referred to th e same data, the UNTDED represented the widest 
universe of data elements. Every count ry used a subset of the UNTDED. TN/TF/M/22 
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  26. The representative of Switzerland
 introduced JOB(07)/213, explaining that it was not a Swiss 
document but originated from the WCO, consisting of their glossary for international customs terms.  
It had occurred to Switzerland that, as Members started to focus more on specific legal texts, it might be useful to have a clear idea and definition of th e terms used by the international organization that 
was the expert on the subject to avoid reinventi ng the wheel. The Glossary could be consulted for 
definition purposes and would help Members in  their deliberations, enhance delegations' 
understanding and their drafting of the trade facilitati on proposals. It was basically a dictionary for 
reference purposes.   
27. The representative of Angola
 introduced document TN/TF/W/152, saying that it was a 
reaction to the communication on the issue of Pre-ship ment Inspection (PSI) that the EC had tabled in 
June 2006.  Angola wished to maintain PSI merely  because it sought to preserve the health of its 
population. One should recall the case of an Afri can country being used as a depositary for toxic 
waste.  If there had been preshipment inspection,  such a thing would not have happened.  Angola 
could provide various examples to argue  its case.  He wished to stress that Angola used this system to 
conserve the health of its population and the envi ronment and, especially, to maintain a certain 
financial balance in its customs re venues.  However, Angola was prepared to discuss this with the EC 
in order to reach consensus.     
28. The representative of the United States  introduced document TN/TF/W/151, explaining that it 
was an updated overview of US Aid-for-Trade in tr ade facilitation and related activities.  It  updated 
an earlier submission on the matter in order to provide a more recent picture of the growing US assistance activities and might be of interest to Me mbers as they considered the types of trade 
facilitation-related assistance currently available and how such assistance might be used for the  
implementation of the various proposals under consideration. 
29. US Aid-for-Trade had grown significantly ove r the past years w ith trade facilitation 
assistance representing one of the larger shares. Assistance was being provided through a number of US agencies for a wide variety of activities such as work in the areas of transparency,  administrative 
practice and organization, risk management, cust oms valuation, classification, and others.   
30. The United States had also been active in the needs assessment exercises organized by the 
WTO Secretariat.  Most recently, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) had helped 
to facilitate the needs assessment ex ercise in Uganda.  The US looked forward to continuing the work 
with countries to provide assistance in trade fac ilitation, including in connec tion with the outcome of 
the Trade Facilitation negotiations.  The US delega tion would be happy to meet with delegations 
bilaterally to answer any questions they might have.  
31. The representatives of Switzerland
 and Norway  introduced document TN/TF/W/131/Rev.1, 
explaining that the  proponents of this revised proposal on international standards had tried to 
accommodate the various comments made in the plenar y and received in bilateral talks on its previous 
version without undermining the general thrust of  the initial proposal. The main changes were as 
follows: The submission now concentrated on the text ual proposal, leaving aside the introduction and 
explanatory remarks. Under the assumption that Articles XX and XXI of the GATT would apply to 
the new Trade Facilitation Agreement, these articles were not mentioned specifically in the text. 
However, the authors assumed that this aspect would be dealt with on a horizontal basis.  
32. The revision introduced further flexibility in paragraph three, going beyond the exceptions in 
GATT Articles XX and XXI as request ed by various delegations. It fu rthermore clarified in paragraph 
two the relationship between the use of internationa l standards and regional standards when the latter 
were a more efficient means to achieve trade facilitation. Finally, the definition of scope was 
presented in two options: the first option was a possibl y open-ended short list of relevant international 
organizations with the latter being a closed – but longer – listing of re levant international  TN/TF/M/22 
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  organizations as well as a selection of relevant interna tional standards (as of a certain status) to which 
the obligation stipulated in the proposal would apply. 
33. The Negotiating Group took note  of the statements made. 
34. The plenary was adjourned .  
35. Upon resumption  of the plenary meeting, the discussions continued in informal mode with the 
exception of the following items: 
B.  A D HOC ATTENDANCE OF RELEVANT INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS , INCLUDING THE 
IMF,  OECD,  UNCTAD,  WCO  AND THE WORLD BANK, AT THE NEXT MEETING OF THE 
NEGOTIATING GROUP  
36. The Chairman  suggested inviting relevant internati onal organizations, including the IMF, 
OECD, UNCTAD, WCO and the World Bank to attend the next formal meeting of the Negotiating 
Group on an ad hoc basis, as provided for in the Work Plan. 
37. It was so agreed . 
C. O THER BUSINESS  
38. The Chairman  addressed the issue of the Group's next meeting. In light of the upcoming 
holiday season, a busy late January schedule and resulting limitations with respect to meeting 
facilities he suggested for the Negotiating Group to m eet again during the week of 18 February 2008. 
39. It was so agreed . 
40. The meeting was adjourned . 
 
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