Page 42 - Trade and Food Standards

participation of developing members has increased significantly over time, but least- developed country members (LDCs) mostly have a low level of engagement. Developing members have steadily increased their level of notifications under the SPS and TBT Agreements. This group of members now submits significantly more notifications each year than developed members, which is a positive sign of engagement in the work of the committees.
Moreover, developing members now raise or support more STCs per year in the SPS and TBT Committees than developed members. Although the growing number of issues raised by developing members is a positive sign of engagement in the work of the Committees, on average each developing member still raises fewer issues than each developed member. For many developing members, exports of food and agricultural products play an important role in the economy, and the SPS and TBT Agreements and the committee mechanisms are a means to gain and maintain market access. Given that producers and SMEs in developing and LDCs often have the lowest capacity to adapt to new requirements and overcome market access challenges for their food exports, these members have much to gain from strategic engagement in the work of the committees. All economies regardless of size have an equal voice in the committees and therefore an equal chance to have their issues heard and addressed, which makes participation by smaller and more vulnerable members all the more important.
Best practice in the SPS and TBT Committees
The value of engaging in the work of the SPS and TBT Committees goes beyond resolving market access issues. Since the committees are incubators for guidance and best practice on how to implement the SPS and TBT Agreements, it is vital for members to have a voice in the normative function of the committees. The guidance developed by the SPS and TBT Committees over the years has addressed issues such as recognition of equivalent measures, transparency, international standards, conformity assessment procedures and good regulatory practice (GRP).
For example, in the SPS Committee, members developed guidance on equivalence – the concept
that another country’s SPS measures must be accepted as equivalent if they achieve the level of health protection sought, even if the exporting country’s measures differ from those of the importing country. Members thought that facilitating the application of this concept would especially help developing countries, which had indicated that they faced difficulties in having their SPS measures accepted as equivalent by importing members. In parallel, Codex also developed specific guidance, including the Guidelines for the Judgement of Equivalence of Sanitary Measures,4 and provided regular reports about this work to the SPS Committee.
In the TBT Committee, members developed guidance for how to facilitate the acceptance of conformity assessment results, such as certifications and tests, from other members. The TBT and SPS Committees both undertake regular reviews of the implementation of the agreements, which are important opportunities to identify new areas of work, often becoming a source of new guidance.
Participating in Codex
In the early 1970s, a typical session of the Codex Alimentarius Commission would be attended by approximately 250 delegates from around
60 countries. Today, with global food exports in excess of USD 1 trillion annually, over
500 delegates from 120 countries regularly attend the Commission, reaffirming the position of Codex as the pre-eminent international food standard-setting body (see Figure 5).
However, participation in technical Codex committees and task forces is much lower. On average, 138 Codex members from 47 countries participate in the meeting of a Codex subsidiary body5 where substantive negotiation takes place on draft standards. In the past, most participating countries were industrialised countries and developing countries were few. Developing countries not only did not participate actively in meetings, they also did not fully use their right to send written comments to meetings.
4
5
Guidelines on the Judgement of Equivalence of Sanitary Measures associated with Food Inspection and Certification Systems (CAC/GL 53-2003).
Data from 11 technical committees held between September 2016 and May 2017.
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