The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) (‘the Convention’) to which 178 countries, including all Member States, are a party, is a major international environmental instrument aiming to protect endangered species of fauna and flora through controls on international trade in specimens of those species.

The object of the ATT is to establish the highest possible common international standards for regulating or improving the regulation of the international trade in conventional arms and to prevent and eradicate illicit trade in conventional arms and prevent their diversion.

whereas the bipartisan letters sent to the US President by US Senators and by Members of the US House of Representatives, as well as the letter by four Members of the European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade, including its Chairman, urged the HLWG to quickly formulate ambitious proposals to stimulate trade and investment between EU and US, and to remove unnecessary barriers to transatlantic trade and investment; whereas both letters emphasise a need to make increased trade and investment with the EU a priority, and specifically support efforts to address regulatory barriers (and, to achieve closer cooperation between regul ...[+++]ators, non-tariff barriers), the reduction of tariffs to zero where possible, the trade in services, investment, and the further opening up of our public procurement markets to each other;

Collectively, the Balance of Payments Manual of the International Monetary Fund, the Guideline of the European Central Bank (ECB) of 2 May 2003 on the statistical reporting requirements of the European Central Bank in the field of balance of payments and international investment position statistics, and the international reserves template , the Manual on statistics of international trade in services of the United Nations, and the OECD Benchmark Definition of Foreign Direct Investment, define the general rules for compiling statistics on balance of payments, international trade in services, and foreign direct investment.

It is common practice in international trade for the parties to refer not to the law of one or other state but direct to the rules of an international convention such as the Vienna Convention of 11 April 1980 on contracts for the international sale of goods, to the customs of international trade, to the general principles of law, to the lex mercatoria or to recent private codifications such as the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts.

Whereas international trade rules are primarily those established under the auspices of the WTO and laid down in the Annexes to the WTO Agreement, but they can also be those laid down in any other agreement to which the Community is a party and which sets out rules applicable to trade between the Community and third countries, and whereas it is appropriate to give a clear idea of the types of agreements to which the term 'international trade rules` refers;