The WTO Agreements Series Technical Barriers to Trade

156 Pages·2014·1.78 MB·English

The WTO Agreements Series
Technical Barriers to Trade
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World Trade Organization
Centre William Rappard
ISBN 978-92-870-3836-4
Rue de Lausanne 154
CH - 1211 Geneva 21
Switzerland
' + 41 (0)22 739 51 11
7 + 41 (0)22 731 42 06
@ [email protected]
 www.wto.org 9 789287 038364
The WTO
agreements series
The WTO’s agreements are the legal foundation for the international trading system that is
used by the bulk of the world’s trading nations. This series offers a set of handy reference
booklets on selected agreements. Each volume contains the text of one agreement, an
explanation designed to help the user understand the text, and in some cases supplementary
material. They are intended to be an authoritative aid for understanding the agreements, but
because of the legal complexity of the agreements, the introductions cannot be taken as
legal interpretations of the agreements.
The agreements were the outcome of the 1986–1994 Uruguay Round of world trade
negotiations held under the auspices of what was then the GATT (the General Agreement on
Tariffs and Trade). The full set is available in The Results of the Uruguay Round of Multilateral
Trade Negotiations: The Legal Texts. It includes about 60 agreements, annexes, decisions and
understandings, but not the commitments individual countries made on tariffs and services. A
full package of agreements that includes over 20,000 pages of commitments is available from
WTO Publications in a 34-volume set, as well as a CD-ROM, The Results of the Uruguay Round.
Revised and updated in May 2014
Amended in August 2014
The volumes in this series Agreement Establishing the WTO
This publication will also be available
Agriculture in French and Spanish

GATT 1994 and 1947 ISBN 978-92-870- 3836-4
ISSN 1020-4768
Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures
© World Trade Organization
Technical Barriers to Trade Revised in 2014
Contents
Introduction 6
The basic 7
structure of WTO
agreements
The TBT
Agreement
An overview 11
Key principles 15
Transparency 24
TBT Committee 28
Negotiations 32
Disputes brought 33
under the TBT
Agreement
Frequently asked 35
questions
Agreement 39
on Technical
Barriers to Trade
(the legal text)
Decisions and 65
recommendations
adopted by the TBT
Committee since
1 January 1995

Part 1: Decisions and 69
recommendations

1. Good Regulatory Practice 69

2. Conformity Assessment 73

3. Standards 78

4. Transparency 84

5. Technical Assistance 110

6. Special and Differential 116
Treatment

7. Operation of the Committee 118

Annexes to Part 1 120

1 Indicative List of Approaches
to Facilitate Acceptance of 120
the Results of Conformity
Assessment

2 Decision of the Committee on 122
Principles for the Development
of International Standards,
Guides and Recommendations
with relation to Articles 2, 5 and
Annex 3 of the Agreement
3 Format and Guidelines for 126
Notification Procedures for
Draft Technical Regulations
and Conformity Assessment
Procedures

4 Notification Format under 130
Article 10.7

5 Unofficial Translations 131
(Notification Format)

6 Booklets on Enquiry Points 133

7 Format for the Voluntary 135
Notification of Specific Technical
Assistance Needs or Responses

8 Format for Notifications 137
Related to the Code of Good
Practice for the Preparation,
Adoption and Application
of Standards Contained in
Annex 3 of the WTO TBT
Agreement

Part 2: Rules of Procedure 141
for the Meetings of the WTO
Committee on Technical
Barriers to Trade and
Guidelines for Observer
Status for Governments
and International
Intergovernmental
Organizations
Observers in the 151
TBT Committee
Example of a 152
Notification
Technical Barriers to Trade 3

Introduction
The WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (the “TBT Agreement”) entered into
force with the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on 1 January 1995.
It aims to ensure that regulations, standards, testing and certification procedures do not
create unnecessary obstacles to trade.
This booklet discusses the text of the TBT Agreement as it appears in the Final Act of the
Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations, signed in Marrakesh on 15 April 1994.
This agreement and others contained in the Final Act, along with the amended General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT 1994), are part of the treaty which established the
WTO. The WTO superseded the GATT as the umbrella organization for international trade.
The WTO Secretariat has prepared this booklet to assist public understanding of the TBT
Agreement. The booklet first presents the basic structure of WTO agreements. It then
provides a brief overview of the background, purpose and scope of the TBT Agreement,
as well as the types of measures it covers. It sets out the key principles of the Agreement,
and discusses how these have been addressed in recent disputes brought under the TBT
Agreement. It next focuses on transparency, a cornerstone of the TBT Agreement. It also
describes the mandate, role and work of the TBT Committee, and considers how TBT-
related matters have arisen in the Doha Round negotiations. A separate section addresses
a number of frequently asked questions about the Agreement. The booklet also contains
the full text of the TBT Agreement, decisions and recommendations by the TBT Committee,
a list of observers in the TBT Committee and an example of a typical TBT notification.
Technical Barriers to Trade 5

The basic structure of
WTO agreements
The conceptual framework
Broadly speaking, the WTO agreements
for the two largest areas of trade — goods
and services — share a common three-
part outline, even though the details are
sometimes different (see Figure 1).
• They start with general disciplines
contained in the General Agreement on
Tariffs and Trade (GATT) (for goods), the
General Agreement on Trade in Services
(GATS) and the Agreement on Trade-
Related Aspects of Intellectual Property
Rights (TRIPS).
Figure 1: The basic structure of the WTO agreements
Umbrella AGREEMENT ESTABLISHING THE WTO
Intellectual
Goods Services
property
Basic principles GATT GATS TRIPS
Other goods
Additional details agreements and Services annexes
annexes
Countries’
Countries’
Market access schedules of
schedules of
commitments commitments (and
commitments
MFN exemptions)
Dispute settlement DISPUTE SETTLEMENT
Transparency TRADE POLICY REVIEWS
Technical Barriers to Trade 7
• Then come additional agreements some agricultural goods. For GATS, the
and annexes dealing with the special commitments state how much access
requirements of specific sectors or issues. foreign service providers are allowed for
These deal with the following: specific sectors, and they include lists
of types of services where individual
countries say they are not applying the
For goods (under GATT) “most-favoured-nation” principle of non-
discrimination.
Agriculture
Regulations for food safety, animal Much of the Uruguay Round dealt with the first
and plant health protection (SPS) two parts: general disciplines and disciplines
for specific sectors. At the same time,
Textiles and clothing
market access negotiations were possible
Technical regulations and standards for for industrial goods. Once the principles had
products (technical barriers to trade) been worked out, negotiations could proceed
Trade-related investment measures on the commitments for sectors such as
agriculture and services. Negotiations after
Anti-dumping measures
the Uruguay Round and before the Doha
Customs valuations methods Round began in 2001 focused largely on
market access commitments: financial
Pre-shipment inspection
services, basic telecommunications, maritime
Rules of origin transportation (under GATS) and information
technology equipment (under GATT).
Import licensing
Subsidies and countervailing measures The agreement in the third area of trade
covered by the WTO — on intellectual
Safeguards
property (IP) — covers general IP disciplines
For services (the GATS annexes) as well as disciplines covering specific IP
areas, such as copyright, patents, trademarks
Movement of natural persons
and geographical indications. Other details
Air transport come from conventions and agreements
outside the WTO.
Financial services
Shipping The agreement on dispute settlement
contains specific procedural disciplines on
Telecommunications
how to conduct WTO disputes while the
Trade Policy Review Mechanism aims to
ensure that WTO members' trade policies
• Finally, there are the detailed and lengthy and practices are transparent.
schedules (or lists) of commitments made
by individual countries allowing specific Also important
foreign products or service providers One other set of agreements not included
access to their markets. For GATT, these in the diagram above is also important: the
take the form of binding commitments two “plurilateral” agreements not signed by
on tariffs for goods in general, and all members: fair trade in civil aircraft and
combinations of tariffs and quotas for government procurement. (Originally there
8 WTO Agreements Series