WTO Overview
This overview is also available in Chinese and in Korean
languages.
General Background Information on the WTO
The World Trade Organization (WTO)
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an international, intergovernmental, treaty-based organization 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
150 members, accounting for over 97% of world trade, with 30 others currently negotiating membership. 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 day-to-day work of the WTO falls primarily to the General
Council, which conducts work on behalf of the Ministerial Conference and reports to the conference. The General Council delegates and approves
technical work done by its subsidiary bodies – 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. The
General Council also convenes as the Dispute Settlement Body and as the Trade
Policy Review Body and oversees the Trade Negotiations
Committee (TNC). The WTO’s headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland.
At the heart of the system – known as the multilateral trading system – are the WTO’s agreements, negotiated and signed by a large majority of the world’s trading nations,
and ratified in their parliaments. These agreements are essentially legal contracts guaranteeing member countries important trade rights. Two WTO agreements closely
associated with standards and conformity assessment are the Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement (TBT) and the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement (SPS).
The WTO came into being in 1995 as a successor to
the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) established after World War II. In
2001, the Doha
Development Agenda (DDA), launched at the fourth WTO Ministerial Conference in Doha Qatar, placed the interests of developing countries at the center of negotiations and created the Trade Negotiations
Committee (TNC) to supervise the overall conduct of present negotiations.
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.
WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade: Highlights
Technical regulations and standards vary from country to
country. Standards and technical regulations are necessary for the protection
of health, safety, environment, and national security but, if set arbitrarily,
regulations could be used for protectionism. The Agreement on
Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) tries to ensure that technical
regulations, standards, and testing and certification procedures do no create
unnecessary obstacles to trade.
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 criteria defining the
principles for international standards development. These are outlined in Annex 4 of the
Second Triennial Review (23 May 2002). This Annex specifies that the WTO-TBT criteria for an “international
standards developing organization” are: transparency, openness, impartiality, effectiveness,
relevance, consensus, performance-based, coherence, due process, and technical
assistance.
International
standards developing organizations from the United
States include ASTM International, the American Society of Mechanical
Engineers (ASME) and the Institute of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers (IEEE), among others.
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.
WTO Committee on Sanitary and Phytosanitary (WTO/SPS) Measures: Highlights
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.
WTO and the United States
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
National Center for Standards and Certification Information (NCSCI), in the
Standards Services Division at 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). 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 day comment period to allow other WTO members to review and
comment on the proposal.
NCSCI receives copies of the notifications from the WTO
Central Secretariat, in English, which include the country notifying, product
covered, a brief description of the regulation and final date for comments.
NCSCI distributes these to U.S.
industry, federal agencies and other interested parties through a notification
system called “Notify U.S.”.
This service also enables users to submit comments in response to country
notifications, receive the full text of the proposed regulations, and obtain
updates. Users can register for the "Notify U.S." service at http://www.nist.gov/notifyus/.
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. 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.
For more information on the TBT and SPS agreement, please visit the following links:
1. World Trade Organization (WTO)
2. Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement (TBT)
3. There are six primary documents
that the WTO – TBT committee references regarding standards. The first five are:
- The TBT Agreement
- First Triennial Review (19 November 1997)
- Third Triennial Review (11 November 2003)
- Fourth Triennial Review (14 November 2006)
In May 2002, all of the decisions relevant to international
standards issued by the TBT up to that date were bundled up into a helpful
document (the sixth primary document) titled:
4. United States
- Enquiry Points
- ANSI and the Code of Good Practice
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