OECD Study on the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) Observatory by OECD

Author:OECD
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: governance
Publisher: OECD Publishing
Published: 2020-02-24T00:00:00+00:00

Monitoring of the process of international harmonisation by WTO Secretariat

The SPS Agreement envisages the monitoring by the SPS Committee of international harmonization and the use of international standards, guidelines and recommendations (art. 3.5; 12.4 SPS Agreement). This procedure aims to encourage the use of international, standards and recommendations, to identify where the non-use of such standards creates a major impact on trade, and to help the relevant IOs setting the standards identify where a standard was needed or was not appropriate for its purpose or use (WTO, 2004[19]).

In virtue of this procedure, the SPS Committee monitors the process of international harmonisation at each of its regular meetings. In practice, Members use this opportunity to raise issues to the attention of the SPS Committee Members related to other Members’ practice that may create barriers to trade because of a lack of consistency with international standards. These issues are then discussed in the Committee meetings and reflected in the minutes. Each year, the WTO Secretariat prepares an annual report, in which it gives an overview of the issues raised over the year (WTO, 2018[20]). Concretely, this serves as an opportunity for WTO Members to encourage compliance of other Members with international standards, including OIE standards. Box ‎2.5 provides examples of the OIE-related issues discussed in recent annual reports.

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