WTO TBT Agreement and international standards

To minimize unnecessary barriers to trade, the WTO/TBT Agreement requires countries to use international standards, unless when inappropriate, as a basis for their national technical regulations

Article 2.4 of the WTO/TBT Agreement:

“Where technical regulations are required and relevant international standards exist or their completion is imminent, Members shall use them, or the relevant parts of them, as a basis for their technical regulations except when such international standards or relevant parts would be an ineffective or inappropriate means for the fulfilment of the legitimate objectives pursued, for instance because of fundamental climatic or geographical factors or fundamental technological problems.”

 

The TBT Agreement does not indicate explicitly which organizations are developers of international standards.

An description of the principles (known as the “Six Principles”) for the development of international standards is however available. Standards developed by organizations abiding to these principles can be implicitly considered “international standards” for the purposes of the TBT Agreement.

This is a non-trivial source of complexity and uncertainty: the claim that a certain organization is in compliance with the Six Principles can be – it has been, and regularly is – challenged. It is very important, especially for developing countries, to be aware of this type of complexities.