SPS CTTE DISCUSSES WTO ROLE IN REGIONAL RECOGNITION; S&D ALSO IN FOCUS

WTO Members grappled with the role of the global trade body in addressing the need to recognise regions within countries or trade blocs as pest and disease-free for the purposes of international trade, during a 30 January - 2 February session of the Committee on Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Measures. While several developing countries argued that WTO guidelines are necessary, many developed countries suggested that ongoing processes within the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) are adequate to ensure that entire countries' exports are not blocked as a result of a pest or disease problem in a single isolated region.

Members also discussed how to proceed with the Committee's Doha mandated negotiations on special and differential treatment (S&D), and how to ensure that developing countries have the capacity to take advantage of such flexibilities.

Several countries also raised concerns that the global mobilisation against avian flu, and specifically insufficiently-justified trade restrictions, could discourage governments from providing detailed information about the disease, in turn impeding attempts to stem its spread. The OIE confirmed that unscientific responses -- for example, slapping a trade ban on countries that announce of the presence of an entirely different strain of the virus -- "discourages transparency and therefore impedes global attempts to keep track of the disease."

Is regionalisation a feasible alternative?

Article 6 of the SPS Agreement requires governments to recognise regions within or straddling other countries as being safe sources for imports of food and animal and plant products, instead of basing trade entirely on national boundaries. Specifically, these regions could be declared to be "free" from disease or pests.

In two days of informal meetings preceding the formal session, some 15 Members shared their experiences with 'regionalisation,' explaining how they had kept diseases or pests confined within particular regions, and had subsequently suffered unfairly when trade measures were applied to exports from all parts of their respective countries.

A rift continues to separate developed and developing countries on whether the SPS committee needs to draft guidelines to enable Members to enforce Article 6 of the Agreement. While most developed countries responded to presentations from the OIE and IPPC by saying the processes pursued by the two organisations are sufficient to ensure that regions are recognised as pest-free, a group of developing countries suggested that these measures were not enough. A developing country delegate argued that regionalisation must be made a fixture on the SPS Committee agenda in order to ensure that the momentum towards it continues.

If properly implemented, national measures enabling the recognition (and effective derecognition) of an exporting region as having a particular pest or disease problem would enable importing countries, through multilateral recognition of the region as the geographic and trade area affected, to suspend imports from the affected region alone, rather than from the country as a whole. Countries including Canada and Brazil shared examples of how trading partners had imposed extended period bans on all of their exports of certain products, despite the fact that the disease outbreaks had been confined to a small region within each country. The developing-country supporters of developing WTO guidelines on the issue said that country-wide bans have devastating -- and unnecessary -- impacts on their export sectors.

However, some developing countries expressed concerns in the corridors outside the meeting room about the feasibility of moving towards implementing SPS measures on a regional basis, because of the expensive investments required to segregate different regions within one's country for trade purposes. They also expressed fears that such investments could end up being for naught, should importing countries fail to recognise the region or to develop effective procedures for removing SPS measures from the exports of unaffected regions. Members were unable to agree on how to address these issues, in the formal session, however, and several negotiators suggested that consensus on regionalisation guidelines was unlikely. Instead, some said that the SPS Committee should facilitate the monitoring of the OIE and IPPC talks, and support the timelines and deadlines that they adopt.

Interpretation of S&D mandate proves difficult

The question of the relationship between SPS rules and technical assistance resurfaced during discussions on S&D. Although Members agreed to postpone by two years the 2006 deadline for the review of a transparency procedure created by the group in 2003 to encourage Members to provide developing countries with the assistance they may need to meet notified SPS measures. The mechanism encourages developing countries to seek bilateral consultations with Members implementing SPS measures they find difficult to comply with, and requires the latter to publicise the proceedings of these consultations. It was highlighted that no developing countries have taken advantage of the procedure in the two years it has been in operation, despite the fanfare with which it was adopted (see BRIDGES Weekly, 3 November 2004). Sources suggested that it sheds light on a systemic problem in the SPS Committee, namely that developed countries blame developing countries for not using the flexibilities present in the agreement and elsewhere, while many developing countries do not have the capacity to attend the SPS Committee, understand the flexibilities, or implement them. Several developing countries suggested at the meeting that the reasons for why the transparency mechanism had not been used must be examined.

Similar issues were raised in discussions on how to move forward with the Doha mandated S&D negotiations. Developed countries said that the issues discussed in paragraph 43 of the report on SPS-related S&D (G/SPS/35) that Members adopted in June 2005 should be the reference point for ongoing negotiations (see BRIDGES Weekly, 6 July 2005). These focus largely on issues related to SPS-related technical assistance. However, developing countries wanted to focus on revisions to the five proposals for SPS-related S&D that were referenced throughout the same report, but said that they had not received the specific comments on those proposals that would enable them to make revisions that address the underlying issues. This discussion closely mirrors that in the Committee for Trade and Development Special Session, and will likely be continued in the future. Also in question is whether the Committee should forward recommendations on the paragraph 43 issues to the General Council.

Members also considered specific trade concerns, including measures to combat 'mad cow' disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE), and foot and mouth disease. They also discussed a complaint from New Zealand about the length of time Australia is taking to accept its apples and the EU's offer to provide Sri Lanka technical assistance to meet EU regulations on sulphur dioxide residues in cinnamon exports.

The next formal meeting of the SPS Committee is scheduled for 29-30 March.

ICTSD reporting.