At the COFI session, the Agenda of which provided for discussions on the decisions and recommendations of the Sub-Committee on Fish Trade, including those concerning the relationship between FAO and CITES, a Friends of the Chair Group was established to examine this issue, considered as very significant. The CITES Secretariat was represented at the session by an observer but, as other observers, was denied the right to participate in the work of the Group. This apparently for at least three reasons: 1) this kind of Group, under the COFI practice, is limited to FAO member States; 2) the work of the Group was considered as an internal FAO process to determine its position before negotiating with the CITES Standing Committee; and 3) the Secretariat had received no mandate from the Conference of the Parties or the Standing Committee to work on this issue with the FAO. Accordingly, the Group did not took into consideration a document actually submitted by the CITES Secretariat, at the request of and in consultation with the Chairman of the Standing Committee, although it was presented, according to its title, by CITES for consideration by the 25^th session of the FAO Committee of Fisheries. The submission of this draft MoU on behalf of CITES when none of its Parties, except that of the Chairman, had an opportunity to see it, was obviously misleading and the attitude of the Group was basically justified.

After long discussions in the Friends of the Chair Group and further discussion in the plenary meeting, the COFI was unable to reach consensus on a draft MoU, a small minority of States opposing to a couple of sentences that would have afforded to the FAO and regional fisheries management organizations the primary role in fisheries management, as recognized by the Conference of the Parties in the preamble of Decision 12.7. The COFI agreed however on two related documents, Terms of Reference for the ad hoc Expert Advisory Panel for Assessment of Proposals to CITES and a Work Plan to continue the analysis of the effect of CITES listings of commercially-exploited aquatic species. It is worth noting that though related to CITES these two documents applies to FAO internal business only.

Immediately after the closure of the debate on this issue, the observer from the CITES Secretariat was given the floor and choose, most likely with the agreement of her superiors, to give a long lecture to the audience, constituted mainly of representatives of governments and international organizations, to teach how international laws should be interpreted, to criticize the way the Secretariat was treated by FAO and FAO members, and to tell which detrimental effects this could have on the future relationship between the two organizations.

These eventful moments were not reported to the Standing Committee, the Secretariat indicating only, in a first occasion, that its representative was excluded from the Friends of the Chair Group and, at a later stage that she had to wait in the corridors, which were in fact the room in which the COFI was dealing with other issues and where all other observers were also sitting. The Standing Committee, after some discussion that clearly indicated a serious split of opinions between participants, decided to establish a working group to consider the same draft MoU as that ‘submitted’ to the FAO. The discussions in the working group confirmed the divergences and led to some rather harsh exchanges of views between certain participants. After three meetings, the group was unable to make any constructive proposals to the Committee.

The confusion continued in the Committee meeting, and a number of participants regretted that they had no access to any document until the very last days, this preventing them, among other things, to contact their colleagues from fisheries.

Rule 13 specifies the role of the Chairman and clearly indicates that if he shall represent the Committee and the Parties, this is "within the limits of the Committee’s mandate". He should have used the communication procedure described in Rules 30 to 32 and have taken into account the views of the full Committee, which, and nobody else, has received a mandate on this issue from the Conference of the Parties. He did not. Why? Is it because he suspected that it would be difficult to obtain similar views from all the members, or because he wanted that his views and those of the Secretariat be communicated to FAO for consideration at the COFI session? The question remains open.

Various suggestions were made by the Committee, in particular to circulate the document to all the Parties, not only the members of the Committee, to have an as broad as possible input, and to give a mandate to the Chairman to start negotiation with FAO. Although there was a number of questions asked by some members and other participants on such a mandate and on the documents to be circulated, the Chairman endorsed the ideas, especially that concerning the mandate and pushed for their adoption. In the obvious absence of consensus, by which decisions are usually taken in the Committee, the Chairman said that there was a need to vote. The confusion perpetuated about the voting procedure and the questions submitted to vote, and culminated when the result appeared to be a tie. Although the Chairman had read the relevant Rule a few minutes earlier, he misinterpreted it and, instead of asking to the representative of the Depositary Government whether he wanted to break the tie (it means that the motion was rejected), he told him "now you have to make the decision"! Neither the Secretary General nor his Deputy, whom were sitting next to the Chairman, did react and correct the Chairman, as it was their role to do.

Nobody complained about the procedure or tried to contest the result of the vote. While this does not appear of great significance, this nevertheless illustrates how members of the Committee and representatives of Parties may be misled, intentionally or not, because they are not properly prepared to face this kind of situation.

Now the Chairman of the Standing Committee has a mandate to negotiate with FAO, which however has no mandate to negotiate with the CITES Standing Committee, as the latter mandate was given by the COFI to its Sub-Committee on Fish Trade, which will meet in Bremen (Germany) in February 2004 only. Nevertheless, it is important that as many Parties as possible answer to the Notification to the Parties No. 2003/030 sent by the Secretariat on 6 May, and comment on the draft MoU attached to it, in consultation with the national fishery authorities, where appropriate. This would allow the Standing Committee, through his Chairman in a first step, to prepare a new draft that would reflect the views of most Parties not only those of the Chairman and the Secretariat.