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NTS and Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures

The EC traceability and equivalence rules in light of the SPS Agreement: a review of the main legal issues

How can ACP countries reduce the impact of the EU's sanitary and phytosanitary legislation?

Authors: ; O’Connor and Company
Publisher: Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation , 2003

Full text of document

This study sets forth the major legal issues in connection with the WTO legality of the European Union’s sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) legislation as well as the traceability rules to come into force on 1 January 2005. The legislation concerned consists mainly of traceability requirements, conditions for equivalency of the SPS standards of third countries and mutual recognition agreements.

The study suggests that the European Union (EU) legislation can be assumed to hinder trade, but it is not clear that all aspects of the rules are inconsistent with World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules. The study concludes that in order to challenge the traceability rules and those aspects of the SPS rules which are inconsistent with the WTO agreements the ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific) countries should take advantage of the opportunities offered by the current WTO rules and of a favourable negotiating context.

Given the complexity of the negotiations and the lack of available resources, the preferred avenue for ACP countries should be the negotiation of agreements at the plurilateral and bilateral levels. Coordination among developing countries could then help maximising the negotiating efforts. The appropriate negotiating fora could be provided by:

  • the Doha Round agricultural negotiations (multilateral level)
  • the EU-ACP negotiations in the framework of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) negotiations (plurilateral and bilateral level)
  • country-specific initiatives to reach comprehensive or sectoral equivalency agreements with the European Union (bilateral level)

Dispute settlement should only be used as a last resort, unless particular situations make it essential and necessary. Single countries or specific sectors might be affected in disproportionate ways by the European Union rules on traceability and equivalency and that discrimination could require WTO litigation.