| WTO, ISO,
IEC AND WORLD TRADE |
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| 1. Introduction
2. The Agreement on Technical
Barriers to Trade (TBT)
3. The contribution of international
standards and conformity assessment
4. Standardizing bodies
having accepted the WTO TBT Code of Good Practice
5. Obtaining the WTO TBT
Standards Code Directory
6. The WTO Agreement on
the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures
(SPS)
7. WTO General Agreement
on Trade in Services (GATS)
8. The WTO Committee on
Trade and Environment (CTE)
9. Main documents referred
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| INTRODUCTION |
| The World Trade
Organization (WTO) is the international organization
dealing with the global rules of trade between nations.
Its main function is to ensure that trade flows as smoothly,
predictably and freely as possible. ISO
- together with IEC (International Electrotechnical
Commission) and ITU (International Telecommunication
Union) - has built a strategic partnership with WTO.
The political agreements reached within the framework
of WTO require underpinning by technical agreements.
ISO, IEC and ITU, as the three principal organizations
in international standardization, have the complementary
scopes, the framework, the expertise and the experience
to provide this technical support for the growth of
the global market. |
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| THE
AGREEMENT ON TECHNICAL BARRIERS TO TRADE (TBT) |
The Agreement
on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) - sometimes
referred to as the Standards Code - is one of the
legal texts of the WTO
Agreement which obliges WTO
Members to ensure that technical regulations,
voluntary standards and conformity assessment procedures
do not create unnecessary obstacles to trade. Annex
3 (PDF file, 26 KB) of the TBT Agreement is the
Code of Good Practice for the Preparation, Adoption
and Application of Standards which is known as
the WTO Code of Good Practice. In accepting the TBT
Agreement, WTO Members agree to ensure that their
central government standardizing bodies accept and
comply with this Code of Good Practice and agree also
to take reasonable measures to ensure that local government,
non-governmental and regional standardizing bodies
do the same (for the definition of "standardizing
bodies" see ISO/IEC
Guide 2). The Code is therefore open to acceptance
by all such bodies.
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| THE
CONTRIBUTION OF INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS AND CONFORMITY
ASSESSMENT |
| The TBT Agreement
recognizes the important contribution that international
standards and conformity assessment systems can make
to improving efficiency of production and facilitating
international trade. Where international standards exist
or their completion is imminent, therefore, the Code
of Good Practice says that standardizing bodies should
use them, or the relevant parts of them, as a basis
for standards they develop. It also aims at the harmonization
of standards on as wide a basis as possible, encouraging
all standardizing bodies to play as full a part as resources
allow in the preparation of international standards
by the relevant international body, including the ISO
and IEC. In the
interest of transparency, the Code requires that standardizing
bodies that have accepted its terms notify this fact
to the ISO/IEC Information Centre located at the ISO
Central Secretariat in Geneva, either directly or
through the relevant national/international member
of ISONET. At least once every six months, standardizing
bodies having accepted the Code must publish their
work programmes and also notify the existence of their
work programmes to the ISO/IEC Information Centre.
Other important provisions relate to the preparation,
adoption and application of standards. |
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| STANDARDIZING
BODIES HAVING ACCEPTED THE WTO TBT CODE OF GOOD PRACTICE |
| The WTO TBT
Standards Code Directory lists all standardizing
bodies that have notified acceptance of the WTO TBT
Code of Good Practice for the Preparation, Adoption
and Application of Standards. The Directory, which
is published annually, also contains the addresses of
these standardizing bodies and information related to
the availability of their work programmes.
An
updated list of the standardizing bodies that had
notified acceptance of the WTO TBT Code of Good Practice
for the Preparation, Adoption and Application of Standards
can be seen on the WTO ISO Standards Information Gateway
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| OBTAINING
THE WTO TBT STANDARDS CODE DIRECTORY |
The
WTO TBT Standards Code Directory has been replaced by the WTO ISO Standards Information Gateway |
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| THE
WTO AGREEMENT ON THE APPLICATION OF SANITARY AND PHYTOSANITARY
MEASURES (SPS) |
| The Agreement
on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures
(SPS) sets out the basic rules for food safety and animal
and plant health standards. It allows countries to set
their own standards. But it also says regulations must
be based on science. They should be applied only to
the extent necessary to protect human, animal or plant
life or health. And they should not arbitrarily or unjustifiably
discriminate between countries where identical or similar
conditions prevail. The WTO
Member countries are encouraged to use international
standards, guidelines and recommendations where they
exist. However, members may use measures which result
in higher standards if there is scientific justification.
They can also set higher standards based on appropriate
assessment of risks so long as the approach is consistent,
not arbitrary. For further details, please see the detailed
sections of the WTO
web site concerning SPS. |
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| WTO
GENERAL AGREEMENT ON TRADE IN SERVICES (GATS) |
The success achieved
in areas concerned with trade in goods led the WTO
to consider whether the methods used for goods, involving
reference to International Standards, could be applied
with equal success in the field of services. The General
Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) is Annex 1B
of the Uruguay Round agreements.
The GATS agreement covers all internationally-traded
services (for example, banking, telecommunications,
tourism, professional services, etc.) and was developed
in response to the huge growth of the services economy
over the past 30 years and the greater potential for
trading services brought about by the communications
revolution.
For further details, please see the detailed sections
of the WTO
web site concerning GATS. |
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| THE
WTO COMMITTEE ON TRADE AND ENVIRONMENT (CTE) |
| The WTO Committee
on Trade and Environment (CTE) has brought environmental
and sustainable development issues into the mainstream
of WTO work. The Committee's first Report, which was
submitted to the WTO Ministerial Conference in Singapore
in 1998, notes that the WTO is interested in building
a constructive relationship between trade and environmental
concerns. Trade and environment are both important areas
of policymaking and they should be mutually supportive
in order to promote sustainable development. The multilateral
trading system has the capacity to further integrate
environmental considerations and enhance its contribution
to the promotion of sustainable development without
undermining its open, equitable and non-discriminatory
character. Many delegations
in the CTE have welcomed the ISO eco-labelling standards
ISO
14020 and ISO
14024) and have expressed the hope that national
(or regional) eco-labelling systems be developed using
these multilaterally agreed ISO rules.
For more information on the ISO
14000 series of standards, see the ISO
Online section for this subject.
For full details of WTO work in
environmental issues see the Environment
section of the WTO web site. |
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| MAIN
DOCUMENTS REFERRED TO |
WTO ISO Standards Information Gateway
TBT
Agreement (PDF file)
Annex
3 of the TBT Agreement (the Code of Good Practice)
(PDF file)
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