On April 28, 2017, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) announced the release of the 2017 “Special 301” Report, reviewing global developments on trade and intellectual property (IP) and identifying trading partners with harmful records on protection, enforcement, or market access for U.S. innovators and creators.
The WTO announced that WTO members discussed five new or enhanced proposals to advance services negotiations at meetings of the Working Party on Domestic Regulation and the Services Council on 14-17 March 2017. Four of these proposals aim to ensure that domestic licensing procedures and technical standards do not constitute unnecessary barriers to trade while one proposal relates to the establishment of a trade facilitation agreement for services. The WTO provided the following summaries:
On December 27, 2016, the Secretariat of Public Function published in the Diario Oficial an Office Circular setting forth two tables. The first table lists the trade agreements and where the listing of agencies covered may be found in that agreement. The second table shows the threshold amounts converted into the national currency for the first six months of 2017 for government purchases by agencies and administrative bodies that are subject to the terms of various free trade agreements.
On 24 December 2016, the Official Journal published Council Decision (EU) 2016/2369 of 11 November 2016 on the signing, on behalf of the Union, and provisional application of the Protocol of Accession to the Trade Agreement between the European Union and its Member States, of the one part, and Colombia and Peru, of the other part, to take account of the accession of Ecuador. The Council Decision authorises the EU to sign and provisionally apply…
Member countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO) are required under the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT Agreement) to report to the WTO all proposed technical regulations that could affect trade with other Member countries. The WTO Secretariat distributes this information in the form of “notifications” to all Member countries. The chart below summarizes notifications from the WTO in English received and posted by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) during the past month.
On October 20, 2016, the Federal Register published Presidential Notice of October 18, 2016 – Continuation of the National Emergency With Respect to Significant Narcotics Traffickers Centered in Colombia, which continues for an additional year the national emergency first declared on October 21, 1995 by Executive Order 12978. The national emergency is being continued because the actions of significant narcotics traffickers centered in Colombia continue to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of…
On 27 September 2016, the Official Journal published Council Decision (CFSP) 2016/1711 of 27 September 2016 amending Common Position 2001/931/CFSP on the application of specific measures to combat terrorism (the Decision) and Council Regulation (EU) 2016/1710 of 27 September 2016 amending Regulation (EC) No 2580/2001 on specific restrictive measures directed against certain persons and entities with a view to combating terrorism (the Regulation).
On July 18, 2016, the Department of Labor published in the Federal Register anotice stating that on July 15, 2016, the Office of Trade and Labor Affairs (OTLA) accepted for review Submission #2016-02 regarding Colombia pursuant to Article 17.5.5 of the United States-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement (CTPA). On May 16, 2015, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations and five Colombian workers’ and civil society organizations provided a formal submission to OTLA alleging violations of Chapter 17 (the Labor Chapter)
The free trade agreement (FTA) between Colombia and South Korea will enter into force on July 15, 2016 This is Colombia’s first FTA with an Asian country. The FTA between Colombia and Costa Rica will enter into force on August 1, 2016. Colombia already has FTAs in effect with El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
On May 26, 2016, the Department of State published in the Federal Register a document [Public Notice: 9584] announcing that on May 3, 2016, it certified that 14 shrimp-harvesting nations (Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Gabon, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, and Suriname) have a regulatory program comparable to that of the United States governing the incidental taking of the relevant species of sea turtles in the course of commercial shrimp…