.png)
According to Article 2 (1) of the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), “Members shall ensure that in respect of technical regulations, products imported from the territory of any Member shall be accorded treatment no less favourable than that accorded to like products of national origin and to like products originating in any other country.” Article 2(2) of the same agreement further stipulates that: “Members shall ensure that technical regulations are not prepared, adopted or applied with a view to or with the effect of creating unnecessary obstacles to international trade. For this purpose, technical regulations shall not be more trade-restrictive than necessary to fulfill a legitimate objective, taking account of the risks non-fulfillment would create. Such 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. In assessing such risks, relevant elements of consideration are, inter alia: available scientific and technical information, related processing technology or intended end-uses of products.” It is impossible to fully analyze the different existing provisions in the TBT Agreement through this short text. Yet, one can clearly understand the objectives of the agreement after reading the above-mentioned provisions. Again, the multilateral trade system is aiming at the establishment of a balance between economic and non-economic values. For this reason, states according to this agreement are allowed to adopt technical regulations that are trade restrictive, however, the list of objectives for which such regulations could be enacted are limited to the ones mentioned in the Article 2(2). And even then, there are several factors that must be taken into consideration in order to assess whether the technical regulations are being adopted for the protection of non-economic values or simply hide protectionism purposes which are being presented as non-economic values that must be protected in this regard. In the Chapter “Product Safety in the Framework of the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade,” the authors Lukasz Gruszczynski, Tivadar Otvoes and Paolo Davide Farah have paid particular attention to the TBT agreement. Indeed, the authors have analyzed the situations in which such agreement is applicable. The authors also made sure to distinguish between technical regulations or standards from Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures which are covered by another agreement named the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) Agreement and the TBT agreement. After providing the historical origins of the TBT agreement, the authors proceeded to define its scope of application. According to the authors, the agreement is “concerned more with the design and rationality of specific measures that the reasonableness of the political choices that underlie them.” Such conclusion was made after an examination of the preamble of the treaty where it was obvious that a balance was made between trade and non-trade objectives. Thus, one can notice why such agreement had to be drafted at the multilateral level since the Uruguay Round trade negotiations.
PDFPDFStay tuned for news on sustainable development, environment and climate change, international trade and human rights, Chinese issues and much more!
