A dispute-settlement panel of the World Trade Organization will begin discussions this month on the trade row between Tokyo and Washington over Japan's photographic film and paper market, Japanese government officials said Apr. 2.
The neutral panel of three members _ from Switzerland, Brazil and New Zealand _ will meet for the first time on April 17-18 in Geneva and hear senior government officials from both Japan and the United States make their cases over the dispute, the officials said, requesting that they not be named.
The 15-nation European Union, Mexico and Australia are also expected to attend the panel discussions as third parties who could be affected by developments in the dispute, in which the U.S. accuses Japan of unfairly restricting foreign access to its photographic film and paper market. The panel's first meeting will come just six months after the Dispute-Settlement Body of the WTO, the Geneva-based watchdog on international commerce that succeeded the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in January 1995, decided last October to set up the panel at the request of the U.S.