... as Sungjoon was in the last post, first up there's this announcement from the Canadian government:
The Honourable Leona Aglukkaq, Minister of the Environment, Minister of the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency and Minister for the Arctic Council; Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird; the Honourable Ed Fast, Minister of International Trade; and the Honourable Gail Shea, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, today approved the Joint Statement by Canada and the European Union on Access to the European Union of Seal Products from Indigenous Communities of Canada.
The joint statement sets out the framework for cooperation to ensure that Canadian Indigenous communities are treated the same as any other Indigenous community seeking access for seal products in markets within the European Union.
The joint statement recognizes the importance of preserving traditional ways of life in Indigenous communities and establishes that the two sides will:
- ensure that nothing prevents the participation of Canadian non-Indigenous persons and organizations from processing, manufacturing and marketing Canadian Indigenous seal products;
- explore possibilities for supporting Indigenous communities and traditional ways of life through capacity building and the exchange of best practices;
- explore how Indigenous communities can benefit from the new opportunities opened up by the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement to develop their economic, social and environmental potential; and
- ensure that Indigenous seal products imported into the European Union are not limited due to their type or intended purpose.
An expert group will work in a collaborative manner with stakeholders to establish the administrative arrangements required for access to the EU available under its exemption for seal products from Canadian Indigenous communities.
The Government of Canada remains firmly committed to defending its sealing industry and the communities that depend on the seal harvest.
Is this part of a settlement of the WTO Seal Products dispute? Will helping Canada's Inuits sell a few seal products in the EU resolve things?
And then there's the Clove Cigarettes case. A few days ago, Politico reported the following terms of a settlement:
The U.S. and Indonesia submitted papers with the WTO on Friday to terminate the dispute; in exchange for keeping the ban in place, the United States agreed to do the following:
-- Consider giving duty-free treatment to imports of insulated ignition wiring sets from Indonesia under a lapsed tariff-cutting program for developing nations known as the Generalized System of Preferences.
-- Postpone a dispute against Indonesia at the WTO over the country’s restrictions on exports of certain mineral and mining products, partly because affected U.S. companies have received export licenses.
-- Refrain from arbitrary discrimination against cigars or cigarillos from Indonesia as the FDA gains new regulatory control over those products. Once the ban was enacted, Indonesian clove cigarettes were modified slightly to allow them to be sold in the U.S. as cigars.
-- Finally, the two countries agreed to intensify talks for an action plan to improve intellectual property protection and enforcement in Indonesia.
I've been waiting for a formal announcement of the terms, from USTR or an official WTO document, but I haven't seen one yet. The WTO has notices related to a "mutually agreed solution" (WT/DS406/17, WT/DS406/18) but there doesn't seem to be any information on what that solution is!
