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Issue in Brief:
The 1986-1994 Uruguay Round of trade talks resulted in an agreement that led to the creation of the World Trade Organization at the beginning of 1995. Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, it has 145 member countries. The primary function of the WTO is to liberalize trade. The WTO administers trade agreements; provides a forum for trade negotiations and disputes; monitors national trade policies; and provides technical assistance to developing countries.
WTO rules require a scientific basis for health and safety restrictions on agricultural products. Of special relevance to biotechnology are two WTO agreements that came out of the Uruguay Round to encourage the international harmonization of food standards. These are the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Measures and the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT).
The SPS agreement ensures that consumers are supplied with food that is safe to eat and that strict health and safety regulations are not used to disguise protectionist trade policies. SPS states that regulations must be science-based and supported with sufficient evidence, i.e., there must be a compelling scientific reason to restrict trade. The relevant standard-setting organizations cited in the SPS agreement include the Codex Alimentarius (for food), Office International des Epizooties (OIE) and the World Organization for Animal Health (for animals). The standards, guidelines and recommendations of these organizations are the preferred international measures on food and plant matters brought before the WTO, and they have become the benchmarks against which national food measures and regulations are evaluated within the legal parameters of the WTO.
The purpose of the TBT agreement is to ensure that regulations, standards, testing and certification procedures do not impede trade unnecessarily. National variations in technical regulations and product standards present problems for the producers and exporters who must comply with them. This agreement proscribes arbitrary and protectionist regulations that interfere with trade.
The provisions of the WTO agreements-which contain no specific references to biotechnology-allow biotechnology products to be traded on an equal footing with other food products. However, it is clear that some countries are trying to use other international venues, particularly the Codex Alimentarius and the Biosafety Protocol, to get around WTO provisions.
For more on Codex Alimentarius, click here.
For more on the Biosafety Protocol, click here.
Resources:
World Trade Organization:
WTO-Related Standard-Setting Organizations:
Relevant Government Resources:
Other Resources:
For more links, click here.
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