Echols, Marsha A. --- "Equivalence and risk regulation under the World Trade Organization’s SPS Agreement" [2013] ELECD 631; in Van Calster, Geert; Prévost, Denise (eds), "Research Handbook on Environment, Health and the WTO" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2013) 79

Book Title: Research Handbook on Environment, Health and the WTO

Editor(s): Van Calster, Geert; Prévost, Denise

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847208972

Section: Chapter 3

Section Title: Equivalence and risk regulation under the World Trade Organization’s SPS Agreement

Author(s): Echols, Marsha A.

Number of pages: 37

Abstract/Description:

It is recognized that there can be health and safety risks incident to imports of foods, plants, animals and plant or animal products. The Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement) is about the application of safety measures for humans, plants, animals and their products. It was written, in part, to ensure that safety measures are not used to restrict the trade in agriculture that was liberalized by the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA). The negotiators agreed that this goal would be achieved, inter alia, when a covered safety measure is ‘applied only to the extent necessary to protect human, animal or plant life or health, is based on scientific principles and is not maintained without sufficient scientific evidence’.1 The SPS Agreement enshrines in international trade rules a new statement of the right of a World Trade Organization (WTO) Member to take certain sanitary and phytosanitary measures necessary for the protection of human, animal or plant life or health. Much of the SPS Agreement details the limitations on the right to take sanitary and phytosanitary measures.