Research On The Application Of Sanitary And Phytosanitary Measures Agreement

When the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was merged into the Uruguay Round Final Act and the World Trade Organization (WTO) was created, the trading relationship of the world changed. With this change came several new treaties aimed at curtailing restrictive trade measures. One of them is the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phtosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement), which institutes a radical new regime to address member quarantine measures. Unlike the GATT, the SPS Agreement and the WTO combine to provide prescriptive set of rules, a binding dispute resolution system, and provisions for retaliation.Countries often adopt some strict quarantine rules and procedures?sanitary and phtosanitary measures (SPS measures) on the import of food and animal and plant products to ensure national public health. There is a legal interest in maintaining SPS measures to prevent from the introduction of destructive organisms, which might cause serious damages to national agriculture and the balance of nature. However, the application of the SPS measures will increase the cost of the products, and even prohibit importation under certain circumstances. So they are easily misused by trade protectionism. It is believed that a complete elimination of protectionism is not easy due to independent political and economic interests among countries. As a matter of fact, national policies tend to constantly invent new barriers to trade. A government might be tempted or forced to apply some over-strict SPS measures to either prohibit importation, or deliberately add the cost of imported agricultural products and almost makes it a prohibition of importation.With the reduction of tariffs and elimination of quotas by GATT, other more refined measures such as SPS measures have always beenintroduced to protect national industries, which gradually become a new focus of international trade disputes. Obviously, if importing states so "freely " develop SPS measures, the inconsistence of SPS regulations of different states will lead to conflicts and distortion of trade, and finally become a barrier to the liberalization of international trade.Although SPS Agreement makes an important step to restrict the possible misuse of SPS measures by members, there are still some problems mainly about how to transfer the abstract provisions of the Agreement into a clear, predictable, operative and specific provisions. Scientific foundation is the main criterion chosen by WTO members to distinguish between justified SPS measures and trade protectionism. Science uses quantitative methods to analyze risk. It does not, however, decide what risk a society can accept. Though scientific principles can foster legitimacy of national 'SPS measures, the relationship between science and policy is a complex one.This article firstly studies the rules of SPS Agreement, which is an important start of the whole study. The development of SPS Agreement experienced a long history, when GATT members realized it necessary to regulate members' SPS measures for preserving the progress of negotiations on tariffs reduction. Article 2, 3 and 5 constitute the core of SPS Agreement, which are also the most difficult part to understand. They provide disciplines for members' SPS measures, requiring that they have sufficient scientific evidence and are based on international standards or risk assessment. Comparative study of the relationship between SPS Agreement, GATT1994 and Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT Agreement) is an important part of rules study. To distinguish the scope of application, terms of invocation and effects helps deeper understanding of SPS Agreement, which is generally far more specific and stringent.Secondly, cases study examines SPS Agreement in practice. In the first three cases, the Panels and Appellate Bodies' interpretation of the articles became an important development -of the Agreement and a factual case law. It cannot be gained through rules study.Thirdly, this article makes a comment on SPS Agreement on the...