World Trade
Organization RESTRICTED S/CSC/M/17
24 November 2000 (00-5023) Committee on Specific Commitments

REPORT OF THE MEETING HELD ON 4 OCTOBER 2000

Note by the Secretariat

The Committee on Specific Commitments held its seventeenth meeting on 4 October 2000.
Although a number of delegations suggested that more substantive discussions were needed on the matters covered by questions (b) and (c) of the Annotated Agenda, the point was made by others that a continuing general discussion on these issues might not lead to productive results and that in the future it might be better to deal with production services on a fee or contract basis case-by-case.
Many delegations agreed that water distribution services or at least some aspects such as “collection” and “purification” were relevant to the environment and therefore could be classified as environmental services.
Two delegations said that “bulk water”, which related to the issue of exhaustible natural resources, should be excluded from a possible classification of water distribution services under the GATS.
The EC also agreed to move maintenance and repair services to the cluster section and to give consideration to the other points made by Members in a revised draft proposal.
International law could not involve aspects of domestic law and therefore could not be deemed to include the law of international business transactions, which was a complex subject touching upon several aspects of various domestic laws.
Another delegation wondered whether the descriptions contained in Attachment A were only illustrative or were meant to be part of some future classification, as some of them did not have a clear correspondence with the CPC.
One delegation suggested that some of the value added elements, which according to the US characterised express delivery services, did not require a new classification nor become the object of negotiations under Articles XVI and XVII, but instead might be relevant to additional commitments under Article XVIII.
The EC replied that the proposal aimed at updating the current CPC and W/120 distinctions, which were based on activities performed by national postal administrations (postal services) and activities performed by private operators (courier services).
As it was clear that the New Zealand proposal referred to a possible new “core” sector and not to a “cluster”, it was agreed to wait for more input from the UN Statistical Office on the actual coverage of the CPC with respect to integrated construction services.
she said that, as in the case of some energy services, the classification of water distribution services presented problems relating to possible overlaps between GATT and GATS, and added that even if it were established that there was no overlap and that water distribution services were not already covered by W/120, her delegation did not support its inclusion in W/120.
The classification of energy services should serve three main objectives: (1) to give an adequate definition of the sub-sectors which are relevant to trade in energy services, taking account of the diversity among domestic markets and Members levels of development; (2) to maintain the Uruguay Round balance of rights and obligations among Members; and (3) to improve the transparency of negotiating instruments.
In this respect, he pointed out that it might be useful to start with the classification of “core services”, which would require an amendment of the W/120, while continuing to discuss clusters on a case-by-case basis in the Committee, with a view to creating separate negotiating tools at a later stage.
Given its position in the GATS framework (Part Four, which, interalia, provided guidance to the scheduling of commitments pursuant to Part Three), Article XX:2 could not possibly be meant to create ambiguity and that therefore the ambiguity at issue was due to drafting.
The delegation of the United States expressed concern regarding the illustrative list of national treatment restrictions, arguing that there were a number of unresolved problems with the listed examples and duplication with other examples included in the guidelines.
REQUEST FOR OBSERVER STATUS BY THE UNIVERSAL POSTAL UNION (UPU)
The Chairman recalled that at the meeting held on 23 and 24 May 2000 the Committee had received a request for observer status from the Universal Postal Union (UPU).
The representative of Pakistan pointed out that the General Council was still considering the general issue of observership and that it was appropriate that the Committee on Specific Commitments deferred consideration of this matter until clear directions were received from the General Council.