Topic: World Trade Agreements
| THE AGREEMENT ON TECHNICAL BARRIERS TO TRADE (TBT) |
| The Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) - sometimes referred to as the Standards Code - is one of the legal texts of the WTO Agreement which obliges WTO Members to ensure that technical regulations, voluntary standards and conformity assessment procedures do not create unnecessary obstacles to trade. Annex 3 (PDF file, 26 KB) of the TBT Agreement is the Code of Good Practice for the Preparation, Adoption and Application of Standards which is known as the WTO Code of Good Practice. In accepting the TBT Agreement, WTO Members agree to ensure that their central government standardizing bodies accept and comply with this Code of Good Practice and agree also to take reasonable measures to ensure that local government, non-governmental and regional standardizing bodies do the same (for the definition of "standardizing bodies" see ISO/IEC Guide 2). The Code is therefore open to acceptance by all such bodies. |
| THE WTO AGREEMENT ON THE APPLICATION OF SANITARY AND PHYTOSANITARY MEASURES (SPS) |
| The Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) sets out the basic rules for food safety and animal and plant health standards. It allows countries to set their own standards. But it also says regulations must be based on science. They should be applied only to the extent necessary to protect human, animal or plant life or health. And they should not arbitrarily or unjustifiably discriminate between countries where identical or similar conditions prevail. The WTO Member countries are encouraged to use international standards, guidelines and recommendations where they exist. However, members may use measures which result in higher standards if there is scientific justification. They can also set higher standards based on appropriate assessment of risks so long as the approach is consistent, not arbitrary. For further details, please see the detailed sections of the WTO web site concerning SPS. |
