The WTO Secretariat and sponsors of the Reference Paper on Services Domestic Regulation will attempt to spin on the announcement that India and South Africa have withdrawn their objections to its adoption through schedules to the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) as an outcome of this MC13.
This is not an outcome of the ministerial. This issue was addressed in Geneva. It is still being addressed in the correct forum mandated to address this issue, the Working Party on Domestic Regulation.
There are several legal and procedural issues that remain outstanding and still need to be addressed, including how to ensure that procedural rules that relate to amending schedules of commitments do not get abused to circumvent the rules of amendment under the Marrkesh Agreement.
Civil Society call on the Members, as the next step, to discuss long-standing concerns with this reference paper in that proper forum.