Types of SPS measures
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Types of SPS measures
SPS measures include laws, decrees, regulations, requirements and procedures, and can take many different forms: |
- end product criteria
- quarantine measures
- processing/production
- requirements
- method of risk assessment
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- inspection procedures
- testing procedures
- approval procedures
- sampling procedures
- food safety-related
- labelling and packaging requirements
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The definition of an SPS measure in Annex A of the Agreement includes this list of different kinds of measures. Examples in each sub-category are:
- end product criteria: a food standard that allows no more than one part per million of a specified residue in a particular food
- quarantine measure: a requirement that every shipment of an imported fruit be fumigated before release into trade
- processing/production requirements: every chicken carcass on a slaughter line must go through a sterilising chlorine wash
- certification: a competent authority in the exporting country must provide written certification that live animals have been tested for disease before export
- methods of risk assessment: specification in legislation as to how risk is to be taken into account
- inspection procedures: a detailed set of requirements on how meat for human consumption is to be inspected
- testing procedures: a regulation concerning use of standard test procedures for pesticide residues by an accredited laboratory
- approval procedures: official mechanisms for approving veterinary drugs for use
- sampling procedures: specified practices for taking random samples from imported food consignments
- packaging and labelling requirements: requirements applicable to imported meat
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Additional considerations
SPS measures may also be intended to achieve other objectives - e.g. a measure that is intended to ensure that food is safe for consumption may also serve to prevent deception of consumers - but such a measure can only be judged as an SPS measure; it cannot be justified by reference to the TBT Agreement as well or instead.
Environmental protection measures can be SPS measures if they fit the definition - animals include fish and wild fauna; plants include forests and wild flora. |
The provisions of the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade do not apply to SPS measures as defined in the SPS Agreement. Consequently a measure that has the purpose of an SPS measure and other purposes as well can only be justified in terms of its conformity with the SPS Agreement, and this justification cannot have regard to the non-SPS rationale.
An example is a requirement that meat intended for human consumption must be tested to verify that it is of a particular species - that it is bovine meat and not meat from a kangaroo. Such testing may be justified under the SPS Agreement if it is necessary to ensure that the appropriate meat inspection regime has been followed in the slaughterhouse. Obviously species verification also protects consumers against deceptive practices (i.e. the sale of kangaroo meat that is wrongly described as beef), which is a legitimate objective under the TBT Agreement. But this cannot be used as a justification of the requirement for species verification if the matter comes to adjudication under the WTO dispute settlement procedure.
Measures to protect wild animals and plants (part of the natural environment) against pests and diseases, as well as measures to protect the built environment against pests such as timber borer insects, can be justified if they conform with the provisions of the SPS Agreement.
For example, a country may be justified in applying very strict measures to prevent importation of pest species like fire ants or a disease like a rust that affects eucalyptus trees.
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Main objectives of SPS Agreement
The basic aim of the SPS Agreement is to maintain the sovereign right of any government to provide the level of health protection it deems appropriate while ensuring that these sovereign rights are not misused for protectionist purposes and do not result in unnecessary barriers to international trade. |
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How is the objective achieved?
The Agreement achieves its aim by setting out rules for the development and use of SPS measures.
In effect, it codifies the rights and obligations of WTO Member countries in this field.
The Agreement does not presume that trade is more important than the achievement of health and safety goals.
Legitimate measures are fully protected by the Agreement. |
In the years immediately after the SPS Agreement came into effect it was common for some groups (e.g. consumer representative organizations in developed countries) to claim that the health and safety goals subordinated the protection of human health and the environment to trade objectives. This line of criticism has become more muted in recent times as understanding of the Agreement has grown.
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H
ealth protection versus economic protection
- All countries take action, in the form of SPS measures, to protect the health of humans, animals and plants.
- Typically, measures are requirements on domestic or imported products.
- SPS measures have the ability to shelter domestic producers from foreign competition.
- It can be difficult to distinguish legitimate protective measures from SPS measures that are motivated by trade protectionism.
- Domestic stakeholders often apply pressure to their national governments to introduce or maintain SPS measures that will make it more difficult or impossible for imports to be competitive.
- In effect the SPS Agreement establishes a mechanism for distinguishing between legitimate and illegitimate SPS measures.
- It does this by identifying several ways in which measures can be justified and providing access to the WTO dispute settlement procedure to resolve any disagreements between Members.
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SPS measures should not be used in a trade-distorting way so as to disadvantage competitors in exporting countries. Some examples of such illegitimate use of SPS Agreement are:
A country sets the tolerance level for a specific food contaminant, like a heavy metal, at a very low level which can be met by domestic producers because of local circumstances but not by producers in other countries. A higher tolerance would still allow adequate protection of the health of consumers, but would also allow more import competition. The measure therefore has the effect of deliberately or inadvertently inhibiting trade without justification in terms of health outcomes.
A country has a set of requirements for the inspection of meat in its own slaughterhouses, and in the slaughterhouses of another country that exports meat to it. The requirements include a particular procedure intended to detect infection by a certain parasite. The parasite is known to be present in the importing country, but is not present in the exporting country. Nevertheless the exporting country is still required to incur the expense of carrying out the inspection procedure, so foregoing a potential cost advantage.
A country operates a system for detaining and testing imported foods to ensure conformity with standards, at the expense of the importer, but has no comparable system for verifying that domestically-produced foods are equally safe.
A country prohibits imports of a particular vegetable from another country, claiming that it does not know whether imports could carry exotic pests and diseases. The country makes no effort to determine what the risk would be if imports were allowed, nor whether there are means available to manage that risk to an acceptably low level.
For occupational health and safety reasons (i.e. danger to farmers), a country prohibits its own producers from using a particular veterinary medicine on their meat production animals, and applies the same requirement to meat imports. Other countries do permit use of the medicine, but cannot export even though the meat is safe to eat if residues of the substance are kept within a certain limit value by appropriate farming practices.
Related articles:
- Sanitary & Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) - Part 1
- Sanitary & Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) - Part 2