Sanitary and phytosanitary measures deal with food safety and animal and plant health standards. The WTO does not set the standards. The WTO’s SPS Agreement encourages member countries to use standards set by international organizations (see box), but it also allows countries to set their own standards.

These standards can be higher than the internationally agreed ones, but the agreement says they should be based on scientific evidence, should not discriminate between countries, and should not be a disguised restriction to trade.

The provisions strike a balance between two equally important objectives: helping governments protect consumers, and animal and plant health against known dangers and potential hazards; and avoiding the use of health and safety regulations as protectionism in disguise.

The following issues are among those raised in the lead up to the ministerial conference. It remains to be seen whether they will be accepted for further work, or if they will be included in negotiations. These issues could be considered “implementation” of the existing agreement, or be studied by a working party without necessarily leading to negotiations to revise the SPS Agreement. Countries may decide they would prefer not to re-open the SPS Agreement.
 

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Clarification of ‘vague’ provisions  

A number of members, developing countries in particular, say they want to see the wording of the agreement tightened, and some voluntary commitments turned into mandatory ones.

For example: Article 2 refers to equal treatment for countries “where identical or similar conditions prevail”. Some developing countries complain that their products are not being given equal treatment because the “identical or similar conditions” are being overlooked. They would like the term to be clarified. Some countries would also like to see more developing countries included in agreements where governments recognize each others’ SPS measures as equivalent, including inspection and certification procedures.

The SPS Agreement uses phrases such as “a reasonable” period of time in provisions on giving advance warning of new regulations, or on allowing developing countries an opportunity to adapt their exports to developed countries’ higher standards.

Proposals range from: a simple call for the relevant time-period to be clarified, to specifying “at least 12 months” for developing countries to adapt to new regulations. Several countries want the whole of Article 10, which deals with special and differential treatment for developing countries, to be mandatory.

Some countries see the clarification as part of improving the implementation of the SPS Agreement. Others say it involves interpreting or modifying the agreement and therefore it should be included in the new negotiations. Some also say implementation issues have already been discussed in the SPS Committee during the review of the agreement’s operation and implementation (which took place in 1998), and the committee should continue to be the forum for these issues.
 

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Other developing countries’ concerns  

In addition to seeking clarification on the above issues, a number of developing countries have expressed concern about their lack of resources for implementing the agreement. Among the burdens are:

• the obligation to keep fellow members informed, through the WTO’s SPS Committee, about their regulations (“notification”)
• monitoring new regulations in their export markets
• the difficulty of demonstrating sufficient scientific evidence to justify their own measures or challenge those of others

These countries are calling for both technical assistance, and more time to comply.
 
 

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Risk and precaution

The recent debate surrounding some food safety and animal health issues — including disputes in the WTO over the use of hormones in beef production and over regulations for salmon — raises the question of whether the SPS Agreement’s preference for scientific evidence goes far enough in dealing with possible risks for consumers and producers.

A phrase that has emerged in the debate is the “precautionary principle”, a kind of “safety first” approach to deal with scientific uncertainty. To some extent, Article 5.7 of the SPS Agreement addresses this, but some governments have said outside the WTO that they would like the principle strengthened. However, at the time of writing no proposal had been received. It is also unclear whether this would be handled under the SPS Agreement or through some other means.
 

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Genetically modified organisms and biotechnology   

These issues possibly span several WTO agreements, including SPS, Agriculture, Intellectual Property (TRIPS) and Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT). They have also been discussed in the Trade and Environment Committee.

Among the proposals are suggestions for a new working party or “examination group” to be set up to consider how adequate and effective existing WTO rules are for dealing with genetically modified organisms, biotechnology and other new subjects (from Canada in document WT/GC/W/359, Japan in WT/GC/W/365).