Research On The Problem Of Private Food Standards

“Hunger breeds discontentment”, Food is the most basic necessities of human survival and development. Since the end of the twentieth Century, BSE, foot-and-mouth disease, avian influenza and a series of food safety events of far-reaching influence have occurred. In order to ensure food safety, the government had to change the ways of management, made a series of public compulsory standards, control and management of the food supply chain. At the same time, along with the increasing competition in the international food trade, some organizations engaged in food production or trade or business alliance, the body gradually alone or in combination with other food supply chain, making the products of private standards. In theory, these private standards are voluntary standards, but due to being widely used in the food supply chain, in fact become a mandatory standard. These private standards in international trade is a double-edged sword, has both positive influence and negative effect. Although the trend of trade barriers to food field private standards is increasing, the international community after long discussions and a lot of research is still difficult to reach a consensus on the regulatory issues. The WTO implementation of trade liberalization based on feasibility of purpose, from the perspective of WTO to investigate the regulation of private food standards.This article from the introduction and conclusion, falls into three parts. The first part is an overview of private food standards, mainly introduced the private standards concept, classification and characteristics, analyzes the reasons of private standards rise in the food field and the effect of private food standards on international trade;The second part mainly analyzes the relevance of the private standard WTO/SPS protocol in the food field; The third part discusses the conflict between the WTO/SPS protocol and the "private standard" in the food field; The fourth part is from the WTO and the two levels of China respectively, the "private standard" response strategy.