"application Of Sanitary And Phytosanitary Measures Agreement, Legal Issues,

《Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and PhytosanitaryMeasures》(SPS Agreement), an important result which is created in theUruguay Round of Multilateral Negotiations, is an important multilateral rolethat can ensure to improve international trade and a new fiamework of themultilateral trade system. It provides WTO members fights and obligationswhen they adopts SPS measures, a set of international rules about food safetyand phytosanitory quarantine, and legal basis for members to apply SPSmeasures to protect their people, animals, plants' life and health and preventdisease vires, relevant additives contaminants, toxin or disease causingorganisms from spreading, creating danger or harm. At the same time, with thereduction of tariff, agricultural product only-tariff system, and quotasystemcancellation applied, many countries, especially developed countries begin touse more and more SPS measures to limit the livestock product import. so SPSmeasures are used for some countries to protect their own livestock productmarket which are called hidden technical barrier. The quarantine measuresinvolved in food safety and harmful biology of animal and plant are differentfrom usual technical barrier. In practice, scholars and experts focus more on howto apply the principles of SPS measures to realize the aim of SPS Agreement.This article tries to express the necessity of SPS Agreement in terms of itsbackground, contains and aims, analyze the legal problem in some relevantcases and give some suggestions to deal with the SPS measure problem in China.It includes four parts.Part 1 gives a general introduction of SPS Agreement including itsbackground, legal components, main contents and the relationship with otherrelevant agreements.The main purpose of SPS Agreement is to regulate SPS measures adoptedby WTO members so as to avoid the restriction and be used in a reasonable way.It comes into being in the background of the rapid development of science andtechnology, world economic integration and the unusual attack of international trade barrier.Part 2 mainly explains the basic principles of SPS Agreement. As a part ofWTO, it shall conform to all WTO rules, but because of its own characters, ithas its own special principles. They are scientific evidence principle,harmonization principle and the principle of Assessment of Risk andDetermination of the appropriate level of SPS protection. They are the essentialbasses for WTO members to establish and apply SPS measures. Due to this,SPS Agreement has its own space to exist and develop and regulate SPSmeasures. With the unbalance of world economy and the wide trade protectismcausing a lot of disputes when these principles are used, scientific principlesfocus more on the truth. It requires all SPS measures shall based on enoughscientific evidence. Hamonization emphasize WTO members to cooperate whenthey establish SPS measures in order to avoid disputes and discrimination andimprove international trade. The principle of Assessment of Risk andDetermination of Appropriate level of SPS protection focuses on the beneficialbalance between import countries and export countries. Among all theseprinciples, scientific evidence principle is the core, the other two principles areused to serve the core.Part 3 mainly talks about the situation of SPS measure's application inChina. China has made great progress in legislation and the law enforcementsystem since the beginning of applying reform and opening policy, especiallywhen China became a part of WTO. Comparing with developed countries,China develops very slowly. For example China's "three examinations" lawwere established at the end of 1980s and the beginning of 1990s on thebackground of planned economy system. Its trade system is different betweeninside China and outside China, obviously violating WTO's national treatmentprinciple. In the meantime the regulations are too fuzzy to be applied. China'sscientific management, risk analysis and technical specification develop veryslowly, especially in the Assessment of food risk. There are a lot ofcontradictions and rules violating management discipline and internationalconvention. In enforcing law; there is no unified law enforcement standard butmany law enforcement bodies. So it makes a lot of difference in law enforcement. At the same time, the law cannot be enforced correctly and itbrings many disadvantages.Part 4 mainly gives some suggestions to deal with the situation of SPSmeasures in China. Speaking of legislation, China needs to go all out to banishlaws violating WTO rules, makes full use of WTO rules, principles and othercountries' useful regulations to protect and improve China's trade market, adjust,perfect China's domestic law, rules and regulations and establish a set ofscientific highly effective product standard and examination, quarantine lawsystem. In law enforcement, China should perfect its law enforcement procedureand methods to make law enforcers to enforce law strictly with civilization,prevent the unreasonable, illegal law enforcement, improve the law enforcerthemselves cooperate with other countries to ensure people, animals, plants'life and health, and improve China's ability to export and compete with othercountries.