News and Analysis • Volume 10 • Number 7 • November 2006
SPS Committee Update
At the October meeting of the WTO Committee on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS), eight South American and African countries called for a more systematic discussion of private sector SPS standards, such as supermarket requirements that are more demanding than those required by national legislation.
To support their case, some Members pointed to Article 13 of the SPS Agreement, which requires governments to ‘take such reasonable measures as are available to them’ to ensure that non-governmental entities within their territories comply with the Agreement’s provisions.
The issue of private standards has also come up in the Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), where developing countries have raised concerns over the proliferation of voluntary eco-labels in developed countries. The latter argue that they cannot intervene on private sector labelling schemes or standards based on consumer demand.