Negotiating Group

Negotiating Group and the GATT Policy Negotiations

In relation to the GATT Policy Negotiations, Christopher Mark (1993) provided the following explanation and/or definition of Negotiating Group: A group of country delegates in a GATT Round charged with planning and managing multilateral negotiations concerning a particular issue or product sector. At the outset of the Uruguay Round, two major groups were established –the Group on Negotiations of Goods (GNG) and the Group on Negotiations of Services (GNS) –with 14 issue-oriented subgroups. In Apri11991, these activities were consolidated into seven negotiating groups; work in the final phase of the Round has been organized within four major issue-clusters or Tracks.