By Laurian Unnevehr and Donna Roberts
The objective of this paper is to examine the WTO’s record on food safety and quality issues in order to ascertain its strengths and weaknesses, particularly with respect to the primary objective of the Doha Agenda, which is helping developing countries. Thus, the authors begin by examining the performance of the SPS Agreement to date in reducing barriers to trade and mitigating disputes. Next, they consider the challenges ahead for the global trading system arising from the two trends mentioned above. Finally, the paper considers the potential for current negotiating proposals regarding changes to the SPS under the Doha Agenda to mitigate barriers to trade. Transparency has clearly improved under the SPS agreement.
The obligation to base regulations on scientific risk assessment clearly reduces the latitude for disingenuous use of SPS regulatory interventions. For many complaints, the SPS Agreement’s requirements to base measures on scientific risk assessments and to use the least trade restrictive means for achieving public health goals have led to the quick resolution of trade conflicts, particularly those involving transparently discriminatory measures.
There is no systematic accounting of negotiation of equivalence arrangements to date, but their use is not common in international food trade. In spite of considerable activity to develop equivalence arrangements, significant constraints remain.
The SPS Agreement’s endorsement of harmonization stems from repeated complaints by exporters that comply with divergent SPS measures substantially increases the transactions cost of trade. The impact of harmonization on trade appears to have been constrained as much by the lack of international standards as by normative considerations since the SPS Agreement came into force.
Two trends are creating continuing challenges for the SPS Agreement the first of these being rapid evolution of food safety regulation in developed countries during the 1990s.
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