2001 - WTO Consultations - Doha (Qatar) Ministerial Meeting
Technical Barriers to Trade - Information Paper
Issue
The WTO Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Agreement defines the rights and obligations of Members with respect to the development and application of technical regulations and the ways in which products are assessed to determine if they meet these technical regulations (conformity assessment procedures). Standards and technical regulations are criteria that set out specific characteristics of a product such as its size, shape, design, performance, packaging and labelling. Standards are voluntary characteristics that producers aim to meet to enhance the quality or attractiveness of their product to consumers. Technical regulations, on the other hand, are mandatory measures required by government to ensure products do not adversely affect legitimate public policy concerns such as the protection of human health and safety and the environment. Some examples of technical regulations include motor vehicle safety regulations, building codes to ensure structural and fire safety, and minimum requirements for appliances related to electrical safety.
Technical barriers to trade can impose unnecessary and significant costs on producers and exporters from production costs associated with having to meet different requirements in different markets ("diseconomies of scale") to onerous administrative and assessment costs related to having their products tested to ensure they meet the technical regulations before they can be sold in other countries (e.g., duplicate testing).
The Agreement primarily focuses on reducing technical barriers to trade by requiring governments to use international standards as the basis for their technical regulations, which has the added advantages of transparency and predictability of requirements, and efficiency in production. While the TBT Agreement recognizes that there may be legitimate reasons for differences in technical regulations, for example because of climatic or geographical factors, it requires governments to avoid the adoption and application of unnecessary differences in technical regulations and their conformity assessment procedures which in turn have an effect on trade.
At the same time, the Agreement encourages countries to seek ways to reduce the trade impact where their requirements differ legitimately through means such as not requiring additional tests of products beyond those undertaken in the producer's market, accepting another country's technical regulations as equivalent to their own, or harmonizing technical regulations to those required in other markets.
Technical barriers to trade have had a rising prominence in the overall trade framework as an increasing number of technical regulations are required by governments because of factors such as the complexity of products, consumer demand for safe products, and growing problems of water, air and soil pollution. This increasing use of technical regulations along with the successive reductions of tariffs and their impact on market access have resulted in technical barriers to trade becoming one of the major impediments to the international flow of goods.
Canadian Position
Canada's objective for technical barriers to trade is to ensure that standards, technical regulations, and their conformity assessment procedures do not unjustifiably discriminate against Canadian products in foreign markets. The Government of Canada believes that the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) is an important instrument in disciplining the activities of governments with respect to regulating goods. It also believes that the Agreement as it stands strikes an appropriate balance between preserving the rights of sovereign governments to regulate in order to meet legitimate objectives - such as human health and safety or environmental protection - and ensuring that regulatory activity does not restrict international trade more than is necessary.
The TBT Agreement has strong transparency provisions, as well as traditional trade premises such as non-discrimination among countries (national treatment and most favoured nation) and among products (like products). It encourages the development and use of international standards, the use of those standards in regulatory activity, as well as encouraging regulatory harmonization.
The Agreement also has a review mechanism, known as a "Triennial Review", that allows WTO Members to consider every three years the effectiveness of the implementation and operation of the Agreement. It is an important opportunity for Members (by consensus) to agree to non-binding recommendations related to the Agreement and to outline a work plan for the WTO TBT Committee in the subsequent two years. The Second Triennial Review of the TBT Agreement undertaken in 2000, underlined that implementation issues are the most critical and should be an important part of the Committee's ongoing work. The Committee identified trade related technical assistance for developing countries as fundamental to this approach.
The Canadian private sector is a strong supporter of the TBT Agreement and its principles. While it would like to see more emphasis given to reducing the costs of conformity assessment, it is unclear how this might be done through the TBT Agreement. Canada's view on this issue is that this objective may be better accomplished through dialogue and regulatory cooperation efforts with other WTO Members rather than negotiating additional rules. Multilateral, regional and bilateral regulatory harmonization efforts are all possibilities that should be explored through appropriate institutions.
The provinces and territories also support the Agreement, especially as it relates to providing market access for their products in other countries. There are, however, concerns at the provincial and territorial level with respect to how the disciplines apply to them as these governments play a large role in regulatory activity including health, safety and environmental measures. As a result, the provinces and territories are also of the view to not reopen the Agreement.
Canadian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are a little more ambivalent. They, especially environmental NGOs (ENGOs), often raise concerns that the TBT is limiting the ability of the Government to regulate in the public interest. The Government in turn points out that the right of governments to regulate has been re-affirmed in disputes related to the disciplines of the GATT and the TBT Agreement. What has been addressed in these disputes is how governments regulate - i.e., ensuring measures meet legitimate regulatory objectives while avoiding unnecessary impediments to trade. Article 2.2 of the Agreement states that legitimate objectives are, inter alia, national security requirements; the prevention of deceptive practices; protection of human health or safety; animal or plant life or health; or the environment.
Finally, another important consideration for Canada in determining if it should agree to open or renegotiate the TBT Agreement is the position of other Member countries. In this context, Canada does not support reopening the Agreement for two primary reasons:
1) We now believe that the European Members may be the only group promoting the reopening of the Agreement. The European Members are interested in creating allowances for certain practices that may otherwise, in some circumstances, not be consistent with the TBT disciplines (mandatory non-product related process and production method labelling, and precaution in particular). There is no desire on the part of most Members, and certainly not Canada, to reopen the TBT for this purpose.
2) If the Agreement was reopened, some Members, especially developing country Members, would have a strong interest in making special and differential treatment provisions, along with technical assistance, explicitly obligatory. Canada believes that the current provisions already meet developing country concerns, and that Members' efforts would be better spent implementing the Agreement rather than trying to find ways to avoid or extend implementation. Moreover, the current special and differential provisions clearly provide exceptions for developing countries, none of which have ever been used or requested in the context of the TBT Committee since its creation in 1995.
As a result of the foregoing factors, including outcomes arising out of the Second Triennial Review of the Agreement, the Government of Canada sees no compelling reason to re-open (i.e., renegotiate) the TBT Agreement. This view is shared by virtually all WTO Members, with the exception of many of the European Members.
Canada believes that it is important for all WTO Members get to the point of full and effective implementation of the TBT Agreement. We are particularly mindful of the difficulties developing countries face in this regard; but, also believe developed nations have not completely implemented the current Agreement to its fullest. The major focus of our TBT position will be on implementation of current disciplines in the TBT Agreement rather than the creation of new, additional, or revised obligations.
Related Links
The World Trade Organization website provides more information on the TBT Agreement at:
www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/tbt_e/tbt_e.htm
To find more information on standards activities in Canada please see:
www.scc.ca
More information related to the Government of Canada's Regulatory Policy is
available at:
http://www.pco-bcp.gc.ca/raoics-srdc/default.asp?Language=E&Page;=Home
You may also want to refer to the following documents:
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