Every year the World Trade Organization (WTO) tackles a problem in the world trading system in its World Trade Report. Th e 2010 Report was devoted to the trade in natural resources. Th is year, … the Organization takes an in-depth fresh look at preferential trade.

The HS 2012 explanatory notes 2012 are now available in paper format and the Alphabetical Index is under fi nal review before its publication.

The animals committee of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) met in Geneva on 22 July to discuss how to control the booming - and at times … illegal - wildlife trade. Delegates focused on the eff ects of the trade in three snake species and 20 other at-risk species, and made recommendations for monitoring this trade.

In June 2011 the WCO published its annual reports on drug traffi cking, tobacco smuggling, and infringements of intellectual property rights (IPR).

WTO members are taking more steps to shield their national industries from foreign competition as the economic climate deteriorates, said the monitoring group Global Trade Alert (GTA), which … estimates that almost 200 measures that harm trading partners have been introduced from November 2010 to July 2011.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recently released a working paper evaluating the economic and trade impact of specific trade facilitation measures in the 30 … “old” OECD countries and Hong Kong, China.