Agriculture food and safety
European Communities - Measures Affecting Asbestos and Asbestos – Containing Products
On 28 May 1998 Canada requested consultations with the EC in respect of measures imposed by France in particular Decree of 24 December 1996 with respect to the prohibition of asbestos and products containing asbestos including a ban on imports of such goods. Canada alleged that these measures violate Articles 2 3 and 5 of the SPS Agreement Article 2 of the TBT Agreement and Articles III XI and XIII of GATT 1994. Canada also alleged nullification and impairment of benefits accruing to it under the various agreements cited.
Illicit Trade and Infectious Diseases
We collect a novel dataset that covers about 130 countries and the six four-digit live animal categories in the Harmonized System (HS) over a sixteen-year period to study the link between illicit trade in live animals and threat to animal health from infectious diseases.
Future Resilience to Diseases of Animal Origin
The WTO Secretariat has published a new information note about trade issues associated with the spread of diseases of animal origin. The note maps out the international framework in place to address these issues along with ongoing efforts to ensure safe trade in animals and animal products including in wildlife.
SPS Measures and Trade
In an attempt to disentangle the impact of sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures on trade patterns we estimate a Heckman selection model on the HS4 disaggregated level of trade. Using SPS measures obtained from the SPS Information Management System of the WTO and controlling for zero trade flows we find that SPS concerns reduce the probability of trade in agricultural and food products consistently. However the amount of trade is positively affected by SPS measures conditional on market entry. This suggests that SPS measures constitute an effective market entry barrier. Additionally we split SPS measures into requirements related to (i) conformity assessment and (ii) product characteristics. Both types of measures are implemented by policy makers to achieve a desired level of health safety yet entail diverse trade costs. We find that conformity assessment measures hamper not only the likelihood to trade but also the amount of trade while measures related to product characteristics do not affect the market entry decision but have a strong positive impact on the trade volume. This suggests that trade outcomes crucially depend on the measure policy makers decide to implement.
Standards, Regulations and COVID-19
Mainly affecting trade in medical products and food such standards and regulatory measures typically account for two-thirds of the notifications members submit to the WTO in line with obligations under the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) and the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS). These agreements set out disciplines for standards and regulatory measures used to protect human animal and plant life and health the environment and product safety. The paper notes that most of the COVID-related notifications were submitted under the emergency/urgent notification provisions in the two agreements in response to the pressing health problems posed by the pandemic. The notifications mainly concern trade in personal protective equipment food live animals medical equipment and medicines. The notified measures fall under four main categories: streamlining certification procedures; ensuring safe medical goods; making food available by relaxing technical regulations; and addressing COVID-19 risks from international trade in live animals.
Agricultural Trade and Development
The system of global agricultural and food trade is undergoing rapid processes of change with important implications for economic development. In this paper we document and discuss these changes; including the rapid growth and structural change in agri-food trade the increased consolidation in food supply chains the proliferation of public and private food standards high and volatile food prices and increased vertical coordination in the chains. We investigate what the implications are of these changes for developing countries for their participation in international agricultural trade as well as for economic development income mobility and poverty reduction in rural areas.
COVID-19 and Agriculture
The WTO Secretariat has published a new information note examining the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on world agricultural trade. The paper notes that agricultural trade has fared better than other sectors and that initial measures focused on guaranteeing the immediate availability of food have been followed by a second phase of policies seeking to mend broken supply chains and help producers to cope with the “new normal” situation.
The WTO's TPR Coverage of SPS Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa
The main purpose of the paper is to present the coverage of SPS systems in SSA countries by TPR reports and their main findings. It also opens the discussion as to whether the SPS analytical framework in TPR reports has been sufficiently comprehensive and beneficial in guiding technical assistance (TPR follow-up) activities in SSA. At the outset we briefly present the strategic importance of agriculture in SSA countries with a description of the link between an effective SPS regulatory system and the performance of agriculture.
“Agricultural Products” and “Fishery Products” in the GATT and WTO
The WTO Agreement on Agriculture applies to those “agricultural products” as defined in its Annex 1. This definition expressly excludes “fish and fish products” from the scope of application of the Agreement. In light of this exclusion the paper is intended to provide a historical account of the relationship between agricultural products and fishery products in the context of the negotiations leading to and during the GATT period up to the conclusion of the Uruguay Round and some of its implications for WTO negotiations.
Non-Reciprocal Preference Erosion Arising from MFN Liberalitzation in Agriculture
This paper estimates the risk of preference erosion for non-reciprocal preference recipients in the agricultural sector as a consequence of MFN tariff cuts. It is based on a simulation of a single tariff-cutting scenario. The measure of preference erosion risk is the difference in preference margins enjoyed by individual suppliers to the QUAD (Canada EU Japan United States) markets before and after a MFN tariff reduction multiplied by the associated trade flow. The paper does not attempt to determine how losses in preference margins translate into trade outcomes but it does highlight which products and which non-reciprocal preference beneficiaries are the most vulnerable to erosion effects in the major developed country markets. Overall the paper finds that the risk of preference erosion is small but some countries are strongly affected in particular product lines (notably sugar and bananas).
Risk Assessment in the International Food Safety Policy Arena
Two institutions provide multilateral venues for countries to discuss food safety measures at the international level: the Codex Alimentarius Commission (Codex) and the World Trade Organization. Both institutions encourage their members to base food safety standards on scientific evidence. In this paper we provide a description of how food safety related scientific evidence is generated and how it is used in the context of risk assessment for international standard-setting at CODEX and in WTO trade disputes. In particular we discuss the processes leading to policy conclusions on the basis of scientific evidence with a focus on the interactions involved between private and public sector actors and those between “scientific experts” and others. We identify weaknesses in the current institutional set-up and provide suggestions on how to improve the interaction between different players at the national and international level so as to strengthen the existing system and increase its cost efficiency.