1st January 2003
Developing countries made it clear during the negotiations in Doha that their attitude towards the new Round of WTO trade talks would depend on the amount of attention given to outstanding implementation issues. One of the areas that were singled out for attention was the implementation of the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT Agreement).
Developing countries made it clear during the negotiations in Doha that their attitude towards the new Round of WTO trade talks would depend on the amount of attention given to outstanding implementation issues. One of the areas that were singled out for attention was the implementation of the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT Agreement).
As tariff levels have dropped with the successful implementation of the WTO’s binding schedules, non-tariff (or technical) barriers to trade have become relatively more important for developing country market access. The TBT Agreement established rights and obligations that seek to ensure that standards and technical regulations do not unnecessarily restrict trade. Experience to date suggests that, without certain basic institutional infrastructure, developing countries cannot benefit from the provisions in the TBT Agreement. Indeed, without these institutional capacities, standards and technical regulations can restrict trade whether or not a company or product is in compliance with the relevant requirements.
A growing list of environmental, health and safety (EH&S) standards and technical regulations threaten to restrict developing countries’ access to OECD markets. Without adequate infrastructure in place to deal with these standards and technical regulations, companies in developing countries may find their export markets restricted, not because of an unwillingness or inability to comply, but because of an inability to either identify relevant requirements, implement the necessary institutional and procedural changes, or demonstrate compliance in a credible fashion.
EH&S requirements are intended to promote public goods in support of sustainable development. If they also unfairly restrict market access, then they may harm economic development—one of the three pillars of sustainable development. As governments increasingly turn towards market-based tools to promote sustainable production and consumption, including eco-labels and certification systems, efforts must be made to ensure that these do not harm trading opportunities for companies in developing countries. The implementation of the TBT Agreement should be of particular concern to those interested in sustainable development and the relationship between trade and the environment. This paper will review some developing countries’ experience implementing EH&S standards and technical regulations, and will try to identify where problems exist. It will argue that, in a fundamental way, EH&S requirements are no different from other product quality requirements: both are required for market access and both are developed and implemented within a complex framework of “quality institutions.” This section will also describe these institutions that make up the quality assurance regime at the national, regional and international level.
The paper will also review some of the available experience on the impact of environmental and health and safety standards and technical regulations on exporters, drawing from casework undertaken by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The paper will highlight where problems exist, discuss examples of initiatives to address these problems and suggest priorities for future work.
Although the paper will focus principally on institutional capacity issues, it will also consider the WTO’s Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT Agreement) and its Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement), which are the most important international legal frameworks for addressing these types of barriers to trade.