The World Trade Organization
(WTO) Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary
Measures (the SPS Agreement) aims to provide the balance between
the right of governments to protect food safety, plant and animal
health, and prevent these sanitary and phytosanitary measures from
being unjustified trade barriers.
Established by the SPS Agreement to oversee its implementation,
the SPS Committee has reviewed the operation and implementation of
the agreement three times since it took effect in 1995.1
A report of the third review makes it clear that the SPS Agreement
has provided an effective framework of rules regarding trade
measures taken to protect food safety, plant and animal health.
Many governments have enshrined key obligations of the SPS
Agreement in their national regulations. They first consider
whether the use of one of the relevant international
standards2 could provide the level of health protection
the country considers appropriate and, if not, will base their
requirement on an assessment of the health risks involved with the
trade of the product. The SPS Committee has developed guidelines to
assist governments in ensuring a consistent approach in determining
their acceptable risk levels and in selecting the measures to
achieve these.3
The SPS Committee has also developed guidelines to assist
governments implement 'equivalence' - the recognition that
different methods of production or treatment by another country may
provide the same level of health protection as that resulting from
the importing country's measures.4 A more recent
decision by the committee provides guidelines for adapting
requirements in light of the pest or disease status of the
producing region, which may differ from that of other parts of the
same country.5
The SPS Committee meets three times a year offering an
opportunity for WTO members to raise specific trade concerns
regarding the SPS requirements of trading partners. Since 1995, 340
specific trade concerns have been raised in the SPS Committee (see
figures 1 and 2). Animal health issues include zoonoses (such as
bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE). Developing countries have
been increasingly active in using the SPS Committee as a venue for
addressing specific trade problems, although unfortunately few
least developed countries (LDCs) participate actively (see figure
2).
Advance information regarding changes to the SPS requirements of
importing countries is critical in order for producers to prepare
their products for export. The SPS Agreement requires proposed
changes to SPS requirements be notified to WTO at a time when it is
still possible to accept comments from trading partners and modify
the requirements before they are adopted. An exception permits
governments to impose SPS measures immediately in response to an
urgent situation, but the emergency measure must be temporary and
comments from trading partners must be considered when revising the
temporary measure. The SPS Committee has agreed on procedures and
formats for ensuring transparency, which are regularly reviewed at
special meetings and revised.6
By the end of 2009, WTO members
had submitted 7,315 regular and 1,163 emergency SPS notifications.
Although the majority of notifications were submitted by developed
countries, notifications from developing countries had increased
steadily to 47% of the total by the end of 2009. Notifications from
LDCs are very few, and there is concern that these countries are
also not systematically examining the notifications from other
countries regarding changes that may affect their exports. A
document database system was created to assist developing countries
identify those notifications, and other documents, of most
relevance to them.7
Following regular discussions to ensure that developing
countries fully benefit from the SPS Agreement and receive
assistance in meeting their obligations, the SPS Committee has
adopted a procedure whereby developing countries may request
special and differential treatment, or technical assistance, in
order to comply with new SPS requirements notified by other
countries.8 Technical assistance provided by donors,
international organizations or the WTO secretariat, is reported to
the SPS Committee, including the activities of the Standards and
Trade Development Facility.9
Although the SPS Agreement has succeeded in bringing greater
discipline to governments' use of food safety, plant and animal
health requirements, other challenges remain. Large retailers and
restaurant chains have increasingly begun to establish their own
SPS requirements. These may bring benefits in terms of improving
hygiene and access to some markets but there are many concerns
regarding additional costs for small producers, scientifically
unjustified requirements and the proliferation of standards. The
SPS Committee is considering possible actions to address this
issue.10
1The reports of the three
reviews are contained in WTO documents G/SPS/12, G/SPS/36 and
G/SPS/53.
2The SPS Agreement recognizes as
relevant the standards for food safety adopted by the Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World
Health Organization's Joint Codex Alimentarius Commission (Codex),
for plant protection by the Commission for Phytosanitary Measures
of the FAO International Plant Protection Convention and for animal
health and zoonoses by the World Organisation for Animal Health
.
3'Guidelines to Further the
Practical Implementation of Article 5.5', WTO document
G/SPS/15.
4'Decision on the Implementation
of Article 4 of the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and
Phytosanitary Measures', WTO document
G/SPS/19/Rev.2.
5'Guidelines to Further the
Practical Implementation of Article 6.6 of the Agreement on the
Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures', WTO document
G/SPS/48.
6The most recent recommendations
are contained in G/ SPS/7/Rev.3.
7The SPS Information Management
System is available at: http://spsims.wto.org.
8See
G/SPS/33/Rev.1.
9See www.standardsfacility.org.
10See G/SPS/W/230,
G/SPS/GEN/932/Rev.1, and G/SPS/W/247/ Rev.1.
TECHNICAL BARRIERS TO TRADE AGREEMENT
WTO
With technical regulations and product standards varying between
countries, the many different regulations and standards can make
life difficult for producers and exporters, and thus have the
potential to be used as an excuse for protectionism. To counteract
this, the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Agreement aims to
ensure that regulations, standards, testing and certification
procedures do not create unnecessary obstacles.
The TBT Agreement recognizes countries' rights to adopt the
standards they consider appropriate - for example, for human,
animal or plant life or health, for the protection of the
environment or to meet other consumer interests. Members are not
prevented from taking measures necessary to ensure their standards
are met, but that is counterbalanced with disciplines.
The agreement also sets out a code of good practice for both
governments and non-governmental or industry bodies to prepare,
adopt and apply voluntary standards. The code, which is applied by
more than 200 standards-setting bodies, says the procedures used to
decide whether a product conforms with relevant standards have to
be equitable. The agreement also encourages countries to recognize
each other's procedures for assessing whether a product conforms.
Without recognition, products might have to be tested twice, first
by the exporting country and then by the importing country.
Manufacturers and exporters need to know what the latest
standards are in their prospective markets. To help ensure that
this information is made available conveniently, all WTO member
governments are required to establish national enquiry points and
to keep each other informed through WTO - around 900 new or changed
regulations are notified each year. The TBT Committee is the major
clearing house for members to share the information and the major
forum to discuss concerns about the regulations and their
implementation.