A formal proposal is due to be put forth as of April 22, either by a member nation or by working group Chairman Christian Maquieira of Chile, whose "mantra" has been the following: "Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed".
Initially suggested by a group of Nobel Peace Prize laureates in 2003, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 61/89 to establish an ATT working group with 153 nations in support, 19 nations abstained (including China, Russia and Israel) and one nation voted in opposition -- that one nation was the United States.
But this year we've had to face a stealth proposal from a working group of member nations of the International Whaling Commission, including the United States, to appease the whaling nations of Japan, Norway, and Iceland.
Since then a working group of 28 nations has met twice – in St Petersburg, Florida, in September and in Cambridge in December – and its leaders have thrashed out a package-deal proposal to put to a meeting of the full commission in Rome in two weeks' time.
At the end of the day, while numerous speakers repeated the call for change, there was no agreement on what the next steps would be, only the familiar deadlock that has stymied a working group of member nations for seven years.
On behalf of the French Society of Blood Transfusion, the "Recipients" working group promoted a nation wide survey with the support of the regional blood transfusion centres.
In the Czech Republic, a working group for the nation's ministry of finance developed financial literacy standards in 2007, defining lesson content and outcomes for education in topics ranging from "money and household budget management to financial products and consumer rights".
The negotiating texts serve as a "starting point" for talks among nations, according to Michael Zammit Cutajar, who chairs the working group for long-term cooperation under the UNFCCC.
That issue will be a subject for the nations' defense and foreign-affairs ministers as part of a special working group, he said.
The necessary changes to laws will be introduced in the next session of Parliament and New Zealand will lead a working group co-ordinating the measures across the other nations.
Dick Pound, the former president of Wada who chaired the working group, said the report poses tough questions for many nations.
