The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an international, intergovernmental, treaty-based organization, based in Geneva, Switzerland, established in 1995 as a successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). It is responsible for global rules governing trade between nations. Its main function is to ensure that trade flows as smoothly, predictably, and freely as possible. By lowering trade barriers, the WTO’s system also breaks down other barriers between people and nations. The WTO has 164 members, accounting for over 98% of world trade, with 31 still in the queue for membership to the WTO. The WTO is member-driven with decisions made by consensus of membership and ratified by members’ parliaments. The work of the WTO is undertaken by representatives of the member governments, usually the trade ministers of the member economies.
The WTO’s top-level decision-making body is the Ministerial Conference which meets once every two years. The General Council, which conducts work on behalf of the Ministerial Conference and reports to the conference and is the highest-level decision-making body, and does meet regularly in Geneva. However, the following bodies are the ones that carry out the day to day technical work: the Councils for Trade in Goods, Trade in Services (GATS) and Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) – which oversee the implementation of their respective WTO Agreements.
To achieve its goals of facilitating and promoting trade, the WTO relies on key agreements, negotiated, signed and ratified by its members. These agreements are binding and aligned with best international practices to codify world trade. The WTO agreements closely associated with standards and conformity assessment are the Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement (TBT), the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement (SPS), and the Agreement on Trade Facilitation (TIFA).
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The WTO launched the ePing system in 2016, which is a centralized platform that publicizes all the trade concerns or notifications that countries have made available to other members in an effort to increase transparency in international trade. This can be a relevant tool for standards development and conformity assessment work.
Over three quarters of WTO members are developing or least-developed countries. All WTO agreements contain special provisions for these nations, including longer time periods to implement agreements and commitments, measures to increase trading opportunities, and support to help them build the infrastructure to implement technical standards. The WTO provides technical assistance to developing countries through training courses, missions to individual countries, and through regional seminars.
The Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) seeks to ensure that technical regulations, standards and conformity assessment procedures do not create unnecessary obstacles to trade. Members have the right to regulate at levels they deem appropriate to achieve legitimate objectives, provided that they do not discriminate in an arbitrary or unjustified manner.
As technical regulations and standards vary from country to country the TBT Agreement does not eliminate country’s right to regulate. It ensures that policies taken by a particular country are:
The TBT Agreement contains several annexes which attempt to clarify compliance with the agreement:
Annex 1 contains terms and their definitions for the purpose of the agreement. Under this Annex, it becomes clear that the TBT Agreement distinguishes between the areas of standards, regulations, and conformity assessment (SRC). Standards are defined as voluntary documents and technical regulations as mandatory documents.
Annex 2 regards procedures that apply to technical expert groups established in accordance with the agreement.
Annex 3 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. The Code is therefore open to acceptance by all such bodies. In addition, the TBT Agreement is reviewed annually and triennially; these reviews become important interpretations of the document.
The TBT Committee has also set out "Six Principles" for international standards development. They were agreed upon by the TBT Committee in 2000 under Annex 4 of the Second Triennial Review. This Annex specifies that the WTO-TBT criteria for an “international standards developing organization” are:
The TBT Agreement recognizes the important contributions that international standards and conformity assessment systems can make to improving efficiency of production and facilitating international trade. Where international standards exist, the Code of Good Practice says that standardizing bodies should use them, or the relevant parts of them, as a basis for standards they develop. However, the procedures used to decide whether a product conforms with relevant standards must be fair and equitable. The agreement also aims at the harmonization of standards on as wide a basis as possible, encouraging all standardizing bodies to participate in the preparation of international standards by the relevant international body, including the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).
In the interest of transparency, the Code requires that standardizing bodies that have accepted its terms notify this fact to the ISO/IEC Information Centre located at the ISO Central Secretariat in Geneva, either directly or through the relevant national/international member of the International Organization for Standardization Information Network (ISONET). ISONET is an agreement between standardizing bodies to combine their efforts in order to make information on standards, technical regulations, and related matters readily available whenever it is required.
Though not a standardizing body, the National Center for Standards and Certification Information (NCSCI) in the Standards Services Division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), is the National Member to ISONET for the United States. Standardizing bodies that have accepted the Code must also publish their work programs once every six months. In the United States, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) is the signatory for all ANSI-accredited standards developing organizations (SDOs) and submits the U.S. work program via the weekly ANSI Standards Action email notification.
In addition, 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 the WTO. The TBT Committee serves as the clearing house for members to share information and the forum to discuss concerns about the regulations and their implementation.
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. The Agreement is aimed at minimizing the negative effects of unjustified health barriers on international trade. The Agreement requires member countries – with a view of achieving the widest possible harmonization of food safety, animal and plant health measures – to establish those measures on the basis of science-based international standards, guidelines, and recommendations.
The SPS Agreement recognizes three international standards setting organizations: Codex Alimentarius (CODEX) is named the relevant standards-setting organization for food safety; World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) is named the relevant organization for animal health; and the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) is named the relevant organization for plant health standards. Standards produced by the “three sisters” have become explicitly integrated in the WTO’s SPS Agreement.
The U.S. representative to the World Trade Organization (WTO) is the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and other U.S. government agencies support USTR in this role.
Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT)
The Standards Coordination Office (SCO) inside the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), serves as the U.S. enquiry point and notification authority under the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), within the ePing system of the WTO, that publicizes all the trade concerns or notifications that countries have made available. NIST is a non-regulatory federal agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC). One of the major provisions of the TBT Agreement is notification of proposed technical regulations which significantly affect trade. Each WTO member is required to report proposed central government regulations to the WTO Secretariat in Geneva and provide a 60 days comment period to allow other WTO members to review and comment on the proposal.
SCO oversees copies of the notifications in the ePing database, which include the country notifying, product covered, a brief description of the regulation and final date for comments. It can distribute these to U.S. industry, federal agencies and other interested parties, and said agencies can also have the SCO comment on a notification or submit one behalf of the US Government.
Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS)
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) is the U.S. enquiry point for World Trade Organization (WTO) Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) issues and technical barriers to trade, under the ePing system as well. As the U.S. enquiry point, the agency serves as the official conduit for notifications and comments about these measures. In addition, FAS coordinates and directs the USDA’s responsibilities in international trade negotiations, working closely with the U.S. Trade Representative’s office. Trade policy experts at FAS help identify and work to reduce foreign trade barriers and other practices that hinder U.S. agricultural exports. Trade information sent to Washington, DC by FAS personnel overseas is used to develop and hone strategies to increase market access, monitor trade agreements, and improve programs and policies to make U.S. farm products more competitive.
