Third Part of the United Nations Conference for the Negotiation of a Successor Agreement to the International Tropical Timber Agreement, 1994
27 June – 1 July 2005 | Geneva, Switzerland
Daily Web Coverage & Daily Reports (in English, French & Spanish):
Curtain Raiser Monday 27 Tuesday 28 Wednesday 29 Thursday 30 Friday & Summary

Highlights from Thursday, 30 June 2005

During the fourth day of the UN Conference on the Negotiation of a Successor Agreement to the International Tropical Timber Agreement (ITTA, 1994), Third Part, delegates continued to diverge on numerous outstanding issues. In the morning, delegates approved articles to send to the legal drafting committee, and met in brief working group sessions to debate articles on definitions in Working Group I (WGI) and on review in Working Group II (WGII). In the afternoon, WGI discussed the Preamble and Chapter II (Definitions), and WGII further considered Chapter VII (Operational Activities), Chapter IX (Statistics, Studies and Information), and Chapter X (Miscellaneous). While progress was made on a number of articles, WGII Chair Blaser announced the slow pace of the morning and afternoon deliberations will require delegates to disband working groups and meet in plenary during Friday’s session. This is an indication that delegates may be far from reaching consensus on key issues for the new Agreement by the end of this negotiating session.

Joint Working Group - Working Group II
Panel from the Joint Working Group. From left to right: Catherine Sibut-Pinote, UNCTAD, WGI Chair, Alhassan Attah, Ghana, and WGII Chair Jürgen Blaser, Switzerland
WGI Chair Alhassan Attah, Ghana, asked delegates to focus on the voting process WGII Chair Jürgen Blaser, Switzerland, asked delegates to clean articles for the Drafting Group Luis J. Macchiavello, Ambassador of Peru, feigned a heart attack over language in the working document
Koichi Ito, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, noted the privileges and immunities which it has provided to the Organization since the establishment of ITTO headquarters in Yokohama Luiz Cesar Gasser, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brazil, highlighted the importance of a mid-term evaluation focused on the new Agreement's implementation to see what works, what doesn’t, and why David Brooks, US, said it prefers a simplified two tier voting system
Enzo Barattini, European Commission, discusseed formulation of the article on Policy Work of the Organization Daniel Birchmeier, Switzerland John Bazill, European Commission, called for establishing criteria for “defining thematic programmes” in a paragraph listing criteria for projects and pre-projects
Carlos Moreno Mericaechevarria, UNCTAD legal advisor, said that the phrase: “within the limits of national legislation” is consistent with other commodity agreements and aims to safeguard states’ rights Cecep Herawan, Permanent mission of the Republic of Indonesia to the United Nations and other International Organizations B. Che Yeom Freezailah, Malaysian Timber Certification Council, noted that the Executive Director is given responsibility to assist in formulating proposals within an article on the Special Account
Alain Ngoya-Kessy, Congo, cautioned against compromising the neutrality of the Executive Director
Charlotte Cudby, New Zealand, said there is redundancy in the Article on Review
Merethe Luís, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Norway
Korean Republic delegation during a conversation with WGII Chair Jürgen Blaser
EU representatives having a quick coordination session

Working Group I
Panel from the Working Group I. From left to right: WGI Vice-Chair Jan McAlpine, US, WGI Chair Alhassan Attah, Ghana, and Catherine Sibut-Pinote, UNCTAD
WGI Chair Alhassan Attah, Ghana, proposed, and delegates agreed, to use freely “convertible” instead of “useable” currencies WG I Vice-Chair Jan McAlpine, US Bipin Behari, India, on the definition of "producer member," favored maintaining languague from ITTA, 1994
Franz Xaver Perrez, Swiss Agency for the Environment, Forests and Landscape, asked the Secretariat to distribute a technical paper that discusses the implications of choosing each of the terms for defining “producer member” Victoria L. Barnes, Philippines, said that “Definitions” should not change status of members, and suggested keeping “producer member” as stated in ITTA, 1994 Iwan Krolis, Suriname, questioned if coniferous species are included under closed broadleaved forests
Regarding “net” exporter of tropical timber, Luis Eveline (left), Honduras, José Rolando Zanotti (center), Guatemala, and Arturo Cobian López, Mexico, suggested delete the term “net”
Rubén Darío Guerrero Useda (left), Colombia and Huot Bunnary (right), Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Cambodia, discussed the definitions of consumer members On vote distribution calculation, Don Wijewardana, New Zealand, expressed reservation on basing the definition of “tropical forest resources” on productive and non-productive forests
Alejandro Romero Hernández, Mexico Dike Kari, Papua New Guinea, agreed with the EC definition of "tropical forest resources" Highlighting that consumer members form a small and warm group, Stephanie Caswell, US, said that the only downside of producers becoming consumers would be the obligation of increased contributions to the Administrative Account
Regarding exporter of tropical timber in “volume” or “value”, Renzo Silva, Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources of Venezuela, favored “volume” Sarah Mohan, ICTSD
Participants at the Working Group I
Stephanie Caswell, US and Franz Xaver Perrez, Swiss Agency for the Environment, Forests and Landscape
Bipin Behari, Ministry of Enviornment and Forests of India and Inga Magistad, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Norway
Karen Alvarenga de Oliveira (Brazil) and Twig Johnson (United States of America), ENB writers

Relevant Links

ITTO website, with provisional program, documents for the meeting, and information about the ITTO.
 UNCTAD.
 UNFF Website.
 ENB summary from ITTC-37: (HTML, PDF, TEXT).
 ENB summary from ITTC-36: (English: HTML, PDF, TEXT) (French: HTML, PDF, TEXT).
 ENB summary from ITTC-35: (English: HTML, PDF, TEXT) (French: HTML, PDF, TEXT) (Spanish: HTML, PDF, TEXT).
 ENB summary from ITTC-34: (English: HTML, PDF, TEXT) (French: HTML, PDF, TEXT) (Spanish: HTML, PDF, TEXT).
 ENB summary from ITTC-33: (English: HTML, PDF, TEXT).
 ENB summary from ITTA, 1994 renegotiation: (English: HTML, PDF, TEXT) (French: HTML, PDF, TEXT).
 ENB summary from ITTA, 1994 (second part): (English: HTML, PDF, TEXT) (French: HTML, PDF, TEXT).
 ENB summary from UNFF-5: (HTML, PDF, TEXT).
 YMB summary from the Europe and North Asia Forest Law Enforcement and Governance Conference: (HTML, PDF, TEXT).
 SD summary from the United Nations Forum on Forests Country-Led Initiative on Lessons Learned in Monitoring, Assessment and Reporting on Implementation of IPF/IFF Proposals for Action: (HTML, PDF, TEXT).
 SD summary from the International Conference on Criteria and Indicators for Sustainable Forest Management (CICI): (HTML, PDF, TEXT).
 SD summary from the Trade and Sustainable Forest Management: Impacts and Interactions: (HTML, PDF, TEXT).                 up to top

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