./. RESTRICTED  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  TN/DS/M/24 
26 May 2005 
 (05-2149) 
Special Session of the Dispute Settlement Body 
5 April 2005  
 
 
 
MINUTES OF MEETING 
 
Held in the Centre William Rappard  
on 5 April 2005  
 
Chairman:  Mr. David Spencer (Australia) 
 
  The Chairman
 welcomed participants to the twenty- seventh meeting of the Special Session 
and said that the airgram for the meeting had been circulated in WTO/AIR/2541 and that the draft 
agenda (TN/DS/W/75) contained two items: (i) discu ssion of contributions from participants and (ii) 
"Other Business".  He asked whether any particip ant would like to raise any issue under "Other 
Business".  As there was no response from participan ts, he suggested the deletion of "Other Business" 
from the agenda of the meeting.  The Chairman 's suggestion was accepted and the agenda was 
adopted as amended.    
 
1. Discussion of the contributions contained in Job(05)/19, Job(05)/23, Job(05)/47 and 
Job(05)/48 
1. The Chairman  recalled that at the last meeting of th e Special Session, participants had had a 
very useful discussion of the contribution by the group of seven countries (Argentina, Brazil, Canada, 
India, Mexico, New Zealand and Norway) on third party rights (Job (05)/19) and the one by the 
United States on additional guidance to WTO adjudi cative bodies, which was initially circulated as 
Job(05)/23 and later as TN/DS/W/74.  He said that two new informal contributions had been received 
since the last meeting.  These were a joint co ntribution on post-retaliation by the European 
Communities and Japan (Job (05)/47) and an info rmal discussion paper on panel composition by the 
European Communities (Job (05)/48).  He referred to the informal meeting on the DSU negotiations 
held over the past one and half days and said that the discussions had been very useful in terms of 
shedding light on the four proposals on the table.  He asked whether any participant was intending to 
submit a paper for the consideration of the Special Session, so that it could be taken into account in 
the preparation of the next meeting.   
2. The representative of Malaysia  recalled that her delega tion had submitted a paper on 
preventive measures to the Special S ession last year and was still consu lting with other participants on 
some elements of the proposal.  It was their expectation to submit a revised proposal either before the May Special Session or the June Special Session. 
3. The representative of Australia
 said that her delegation was intending to submit a proposal 
before the next meeting of the Special Session.  The paper would build on elements in their earlier 
proposals on saving time in the dispute settlement  process and on the adoption of accelerated time-
frames for disputes on safeguard measures. 
 TN/DS/M/24 
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 4. The Chairman
 stated that the discussions over the p ast one and half days had been very 
constructive and that he intended to follow the appr oach adopted at this session in discussing further 
the four contributions from Members.  He said th at it was his intention to hold further informal 
consultations before the next Special Session, whic h was scheduled to take place on 9 May 2005.  He 
exhorted participants to continue  consulting with each other in order to advance progress in the 
negotiations.  For transparency purposes, he requ ested delegations to provide him with regular 
updates and said that he would be willing to participate in such informal contacts if they thought it would be helpful for the process.  
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