Events - Third Meeting, 10-12 February 2000

• Agenda



• List of Participants (pdf)



• Commissioner Mozelle W. Thompson, U.S. Federal Trade Commission (U.S. Implementation of the OECD E-Commerce Guidelines)



• Mr D. Byrne, President, European Commissioner For Health And Consumer Protection (How Governments Can Meet Consumer Concerns On The Trade Agenda)



• Sheila McKechnie, Director, UK Consumer Organization, London (The Future Of Globalization)



• Rhoda Karpatkin, President, US Consumers Union (Remarks by Rhoda Karpatkin)

The TACD met for the third time in Washington DC. Attending were leaders of all the major consumer organisations from both sides of the Atlantic and senior officials involved with consumer and trade policy from the EU and the US.

The US Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman, EU Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection, David Byrne and Rhoda Karpatkin, President of Consumers Union of US, gave a keynote speech at the opening session. Congressman David Bonior, the Deputy US Trade Representative Sue Esserman; US Federal Trade Commissioner Mozelle Thompson, the Ambassador of Portugal to the US Joao Rocha Paris; US Under Secretary of State Alan Larson, John Richardson, Deputy Head of the EC Delegation to the US and Mauro Petriccione, Head of Unit at the EC's DG Relex also addressed the TACD conference

Jean Anne Fox, Director of Consumer Protection at the Consumer Federation of America; Joan Claybrook, President of Public Citizen and Jim Murray, Director of the European Consumers Organisation spoke on the state of the transatlantic consumer movement.

Sheila McKechnie, Director of the UK Consumers Association spoke on the future of globalisation.

The TACD working groups have agreed a series of resolutions on:

Electronic commerce: Merger of America Online and Time Warner and Privacy Protection; Junk Email; Linking; ICANN; Jurisdiction on Cross Border Consumer Contracts; Alternative Dispute Resolution; Safe Harbor; E-commerce and Children

Food: Risk Analysis; Misleading Food Labelling; The Impact of the TBT and SPS Agreements on Food Labeling and Safety Regulations; Health Claims; Organic Food

Detailed Papers: Bovine Encephalopathy (BSE) and other Transmissable Spongiform Encelopathies (TSEs), Risk Analysis, Role of "Science" and "Other Factors" in Risk Analysis, Consumers' concerns about Biotechnology and Genetically Modified Organisms

Trade: Ethical labelling, Principles for Harmonisation, Vehicle Safety Concerns, ecolabelling

Health Care and Intellectual Property: Access to Medecines in Developing Countries, Data Exclusivity and Health Registration Data; Early Working of Patents and Research Exceptions; Transparency of Pharmaceutical Economics; Patents on genetic Diagnosis