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WTO: 2008 NEWS ITEMS

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THIS NEWS ITEM IS DESIGNED TO HELP THE PUBLIC UNDERSTAND DEVELOPMENTS IN THE WTO. WHILE EVERY EFFORT HAS BEEN MADE TO ENSURE THE CONTENTS ARE ACCURATE, IT DOES NOT PREJUDICE MEMBER GOVERNMENTS’ POSITIONS. THE OFFICIAL RECORD IS IN THE MEETING’S MINUTES

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about SPS’s “three sisters” — the international standards-setting bodies:
> Codex Alimentarius
> World Organization for Animal Health
> International Plant Protection Convention

This was one of the messages arising from the discussion of good practice in technical assistance to help countries build up their capacity to deal with Sanitary and Phytosanitary measures (SPS) in a workshop and in this meeting of the SPS Committee. It was discussed alongside more specific concerns: some regulars such as trade restrictions to deal with mad cow disease and bird flu, and regulations on “novel” foods; some new such as melamine contamination of Chinese milk products.

The committee also agreed to start a new phase in its examination of private sector standards, and agreed a procedure for undertaking a third review of the implementation of the SPS Agreement. And it undertook the latest in its annual review of how China is applying SPS obligations in its membership agreement.

With about 300 delegates, this was one of the largest SPS Committee meetings ever, a number of participants from developing countries receiving support to attend a workshop on improving technical assistance as well as the committee meeting itself.

SOME DETAIL

Good practice in development assistance

A workshop on “Good Practice in SPS-Related Technical Assistance” kicked off this week of SPS meetings. The presence of a large number of delegates from developing countries meant that technical assistance also aroused interest in the committee as these countries tackle SPS issues in order to improve their performance in trade.

One outcome of the workshop is “a clear idea of what we want to avoid”, Chairperson Marinus Huige reported to the committee — fragmented assistance designed to meet the desires of the donors with little attention paid to the ability of recipient countries to absorb the assistance, to share in owning it, and to sustain the new capabilities.

Rather, the assistance should draw on the robust framework of the principles for making aid effective drawn up by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), he said. And even though SPS is highly technical, assistance in the field should not be separated from “the mainstream of development cooperation”.

In other words, development experts should be alerted to the importance of dealing with fruit-fly in order to boost a country’s ability to export and ultimately to develop, said Michael Roberts, secretary of the Standards and Trade Development Facility and WTO Secretariat staff member. He was responding to a delegate’s comment about the problems of dealing with the pest and the implications for trade.

Private standards

The committee decided to move its work on private sector standards on from broad principles to analyzing specific standards applied to individual products. This followed discussions earlier in the week among a number of members who responded to a Secretariat questionnaire. Their replies on these questions about what the SPS Committee might do are summarized in a Secretariat document, and provided the basis for some proposed actions G/SPS/W/230.

The decision follows the recommendations in that document, with some modifications. All WTO members will be invited to identify products whose trade is affected by private standards and to document these trade effects. This information will be compiled and analyzed in a report to the committee, with additional input from international organizations working on the subject. (The committee agreed to drop the document’s proposal to limit products submitted for study to “one or two products” per member.)

When first raised in 2005, this issue took the SPS Committee into comparatively new territory — the committee generally deals with standards set by international standards-setting bodies and those imposed by governments. Although the agreement says that governments should ensure that non-governmental entities should comply with the agreement, there is no indication of how this should be done. A number of developing countries in particular are concerned that private standards could undermine the disciplines negotiated in the SPS Agreement (see also SPS news archives).

Monitoring the use of international standards

China, Japan, the Republic of Korea and Indonesia objected to a proposed new regional plant health standard of the North American Plant Protection Organization (NAPPO), which would involve ships being inspected for the Asian gypsy moth before entering the territorial waters of NAPPO’s members — Canada, Mexico and the US.

They argued that the proposal would severely and unjustifiably disrupt trade. They said it is not based on science or an international standard and is too stringent because it covers the whole of temperate Asia and involves entire shiploads rather than specific products. Japan said that this would cover not only agricultural products but items such as cars as well. China, which led the complaint, said that despite a “huge number” of ships crossing between the two regions, the moth has only been a “sporadic” problem.

The US, Canada and Mexico said the draft proposal is based on a proper risk assessment, that the Asian Gypsy Moth is an aggressive invasive pest that does not exist in North America and could put 600 plant species at risk. Extensive and expensive measures have been required to stop previous incursions of Gypsy moth. They added that trading partners’ comments are being taken into account, the draft allows for regions to be declared free of the pest, and that ships entering the three countries’ waters would only need to be inspected once before going to ports in any of the NAPPO countries.

Specific trade concerns

One of the SPS Committee’s most important functions is to provide an opportunity for members to raise concerns they have about each others’ SPS measures. This is the SPS Committee’s bread-and-butter work in overseeing the agreement’s implementation. Code numbers, eg, “no. 229”, identify particular issues and can be used to search specific trade concerns (STCs) in the WTO’s SPS Information Management System.

The full list of issues on the agenda is under “P.S.” below.

Settled: In this meeting two issues were reported resolved: China’s concern about EU import restrictions on cooked poultry from Shandong province (specific trade concern number 256), but China said it also hopes that a similar agreement can be reached on poultry from Jinlin province; and Pakistan’s concern about Mexican import restrictions on rice.

Observing that members do not always report to the committee when an issue has been settled, Chairperson Huige said, “I’d really like to encourage members to do this more regularly.”

China on contaminated milk: China acknowledged widespread concern about recent discoveries of melamine in milk powder and other products. It said the Chinese government is also concerned and making enormous efforts to deal with the problem. Information has been provided directly to consumers, through the World Health Organization’s (WHO) website and diplomatic channels, it said. (China was originally reported as referring to the contamination as an accident. The Chinese delegation has clarified that it meant to use the word “incident”.)

Since 10 September tighter controls were introduced for milk and no contamination has been discovered, with a similar result for milk products after controls tightened on 20 September, China said. It noted that several countries have introduced import bans. It urged them to base their measures on science, risk assessment and information from the WHO, to avoid escalating the restrictions, and to notify their measures.

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE or “mad cow disease”): Measures related to this disease have been a long-running issue in the SPS Committee. Canada raised a new concern by complaining that beef import restrictions under the Republic of Korea’s amended Livestock Epidemic Prevention Act could potentially violate the SPS Agreement because of various provisions, including empowering the National Assembly to deliberate the restrictions. The Republic of Korea replied that it would comply with the SPS Agreement and base any measures on science.

The EU, supported by Canada, Uruguay, Switzerland and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), repeated its concern that a number of countries have import restrictions that are too strict and out of line with the recommendations of the OIE, rather than addressing genuine risks.

This is also related to concerns that countries are not applying “regionalization” provisions in the SPS Agreement, which deal with recognizing that regions can be free from a disease without waiting for the whole country to be free. The EU raised the concern again and was supported by Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, each country having regions that have been allowed to export to the EU since August.

The EU’s novel foods regulation: Peru, supported by many Latin American countries and the Philippines, repeated the complaint that the proposed regulations would unreasonably hinder trade because it imposes on the suppliers the burden of proof that traditional or ethnic products or extracts are safe, and requires historical evidence of safe consumption over a large area when the products might have been consumed in small localities. These countries also urged the EU to notify the regulation in the SPS Committee (which it has not), as well as the Technical Barriers to Trade Committee (which it has).

The EU said that a radical revision of the regulation is now under discussion in the European Parliament. The EU wants to make it easier for countries to export traditional foods to Europe, but needs assurance that these do not present health risks. It has less concern with entire fruits or vegetables, compared with extracts or food supplements particularly when used for medical purposes such as treating diabetes, it said. It urged other countries to supply data to contribute to the European Parliament’s discussions.

China’s transitional review

The questions in this seventh review came from the US in a four-page document (G/SPS/W/229), and from the EU (but without written questions distributed in advance). The US questions dealt with restrictions on trade in beef, BSE-related restrictions on other products, pathogen standards (eg, for salmonella), residue standards for ractopamine (a beta-antagonist drug mixed with feed to make pigs produce leaner meat), and avian influenza (“bird flu”).

China defended some measures as being the result of proper risk assessments, similar to measures used by several other countries, and in some cases conforming with international standard-setting bodies. For some questions it said it was working with the US and was still waiting for some information from the US. (The US asked a supplementary question about contaminated milk; China said it had already made a statement and would keep members informed.)

The EU’s last-minute questions were about animal health standards, microbiological criteria in food controls and plant health standards.

The transitional reviews are required annually for the first eight years under China’s membership agreement, and once more after about 10 years.
 

Other subjects

These included: the operation of transparency provisions in the SPS Agreement, including a new “mentoring” system (countries helping others prepare notifications and comply with other transparency requirements); a draft text to improve transparency on special treatment given by developed countries to developing countries (discussed in an informal meeting but not yet agreed); reviews of the SPS Agreement (the third review is due to begin in 2009), and information from international standard-setting bodies and other observer organizations.


Chairperson: Mr Marinus PC Huige of the Netherlands

Next meetings

These dates (with informal meetings on other days in the week) could still be changed:

• 25-26 February 2009

• 24–25 June 2009

• 14–15 October 2009

P.S.

These are some of the trade issues or concerns discussed in the meeting or information supplied to the meeting.

Information from members

• Paraguay — update on SPS-related activities (G/SPS/GEN/876)

• US — US Department of Agriculture’s plans for the regulation of catfish

• Brazil — latest information on foot-and-mouth disease free status of some regions

• China — report on contaminated milk

New

• Canada — on the Republic of Korea’s Livestock Epidemic Prevention Act (LEPA, relating to BSE)

• US — on Chinese Taipei’s maximum residue level (MRL) for ractopamine

• Ecuador — EU maximum residue levels for pesticides in cacao

• China — on a draft regional plant protection standard for the Asian gypsy moth

Raised before

• US — on Japan’s pesticide maximum residue level (MRL) enforcement system (specific trade concern no. 212)

• Peru — on application of the EU regulation on novel foods 258/1997 (no. 238)

• EU — on general import restrictions due to BSE (no. 193)

• EU — on India’s import restrictions on animal products on the basis of avian influenza (no. 185)

• China — on US import restrictions on cooked poultry products (no. 257)

• China — US import restrictions on apples

• Canada — on Greece’s inspection regime for cereal imports (no. 206)

Resolved

• China — on EU import restrictions on cooked poultry (no 256)

• Pakistan — on Mexico’s restrictions on rice

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