RESTRICTEDWORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONWT/GC/W/117
27 November 1998
(98-4701)
General Council
REVIEW OF PROCEDURES FOR THE CIRCULATION
AND DERESTRICTION OF WTO DOCUMENTS
Note by the Secretariat on Proposals made by delegations
This note reproduces the proposals made by delegations with regard to the review of the
Decision on Procedures for the circulation and derestriction of WTO doc uments (WT/L/160/Rev.1).
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1. General
(a) Mexico
Making it clear in the main text of the Council Decision that if they are to be derestricted,
documents must be available in Spanish, French and English;
(b) United States and Canada
WTO documents initially issued as restricted doc uments, but subject to automatic derestriction
after a determined time-period (e.g. minutes), should be clearly marked on the first page of the
document with the anticipated date  of derestriction.  In the exceptional case where a document is to
remain restricted beyond the period foreseen, the Secretariat should issue a notice to this effect.
2. Paragraph 7
(a) United States and Canada
As with the original 1996 Decision, the anticipa ted revised Decision should be reviewed again
after two years.
3. Appendix
(a) Item (a)
(i) United States and Canada
1. Paragraph (a) of the Annex to the 1996 Decision s hould be modified to provide that Secretariat
background notes, except for those which purport to  portray the views of WTO Members, shall
normally be circulated as unrestricted documents.  Recognizing that there may be exceptional cases in
which a WTO body, when requesting the Secretariat to prepare a background note, considers it essential
that the note be initially considered on a restrict ed bases, provisions should be made for exceptional
restriction of such notes, provided that a maximum time-period (e.g. 6 months) should be established for
its automatic derestriction if there are no exceptional circumstances.WT/GC/W/117
Page 2
2. Recognizing that paragraph (g) of the Appe ndix to WT/L/160/Rev.1 already provides that
documents submitted by Members for circulation shou ld normally be issued as unrestricted documents,
the General Council should decide to amend paragraph (a) of the Appendix to provide that this shall also
be the normal practice in the case of documents from Me mbers circulated in the "W" series.  Of course,
in both cases, we should preserve the possibility for the Member making the submission to make anexceptional request for restricting the submission, but  for a period not, in principle, to exceed six
months.
(b) Item (b)
(i) Mexico
Adding, in subparagraph (b) of the Appendix to the Council Decision, documents relating to
the modification of schedules of commitments under Article XXI of the General Agreement of Tradein Services (GATS).
(c) Item (c)
(i) United States and Canada
Paragraph (c) of the Appendix to WT/L/160/Rev.1 should be modified so as to provide that
minutes of meetings of all WTO bodies, including Summary Records of Sessions of the Ministerial
Conference and Secretariat-produced notes of discussions should be considered for derestriction three
months after their circulation in all three WTO languages.
(d) Item (h)
1
(i) United States and Canada
As soon as the "Findings and Conclusions" portion of a completed final panel report is prepared
in all three official languages of the WTO, a final re port shall be issued to the parties to the dispute and
the "Findings and Conclusions" portion shall be circul ated for information purposes as an unrestricted
document, In addition, at the same time, pending its translation into the other two official languages of
the WTO, the "Descriptive" portion of the final repor t, shall be made available as an unrestricted
document in the original language of the panel report.   This decision is without prejudice to the Dispute
Settlement Understanding and the working practices concerning dispute settlement procedures agreed
by the Dispute Settlement Body and contained in document WT/DSB/6.
                                                     
1 In the course of the review of the DSU a number of proposals which have a bearing on the subject of
derestriction and circulation were made.  They are reflected in the Compilation of comments submitted byMembers prepared by the Secretariat (Job No. 6289).  Th e relevant texts are reproduced on the following page.WT/GC/W/117
Page 3
Texts referred to in footnote 1 on Page 2
a) EC: "As of today, when the panel and Appe llate Body reports are issued to the WTO
Membership, they are also made available to the general public.  One possibility might be to
make public at that stage not only the reports, but also the documents in the file before the
panel or the Appellate Body (e.g. analysis and background notes prepared by the WTO
Secretariat, submissions of participating parties which the parties had cleared for publication
or non-confidential summaries, thereof, etc.).  This suggestion might permit a significant
shortening of the reports, by eliminating or substantially shortening the arguments section.  In
developing the precise modalities, the availability in all three official WTO languages  of the
documents necessary to fully understand individual cases should be ensured.  (Paragraph 159of the Compilation)".
b) Japan: "With a view to encouraging the partie s to the dispute to provide a non-confidential
summary of the information contained in their submissions (i.e., a public version of the
submission) and to improving transparency of the dispute settlement process, a deadline ofproviding public versions requested by any Members should be set out in the DSU.  In this
regard, the timing of derestricting final panel reports should be also considered.  (Paragraph
174 of the Compilation)".
c) Norway: "Early derestriction of the parties’ submissions - or the non-confidential parts
thereof, at the latest at the same time as the derestriction of the panel report itself, may
promote a better understanding in the public of the dispute settlement system of the WTO.
This may alleviate the need for extensive inclusion of the submissions in the panel reports
themselves, which should be guided by the usually short summaries of arguments given in
judgements of national courts.  (Paragraph 166 of the Compilation)".
d)  The Compilation of comments submitted by Members also contains in paragraph 170 and the
footnote 22 thereto a cross-reference to the proposal by the US and Canada which appears in item 3(d)
of this note.
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