00-2513 MOREPRESS RELEASE
PRESS/183
20 June 2000
 Officials examine how to analyse risk for food safety measures
How Central American countries have dealt with the risk of mad cow disease, Madagascar withAfrican swine fever, Australia with Chinese pears, the US with salmonella in eggs — these and other
topics were discussed in a two-day WTO workshop which ended today.
The over 150 participants included officials, based in the capitals of WTO member
governments, whose duties include preparing and impl ementing measures to deal with food safety and
animal and plant protection (sanitary and phytosanitary measures — SPS).
The workshop’s focus was on how to analyse risks to health, in order to decide on necessary
measures, as required by the WTO’s Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary
Measures (the “SPS Agreement”). It provided an opportunity for officials from around the world to
share their experiences. The chairperson was Dr Alejandro Thiermann, a former chairperson of the
WTO’s SPS Committee.
“The objective of this workshop is to shed light on the complex relationship between risk
analysis and the disciplines of the WTO Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures”, said
Mr Frank Wolter, Director of the WTO Secretariat’s Agriculture Division.
Inaugurating the two-day workshop, he underlined the fundamental right of all WTO
Members to provide their consumers with safe imported food, and to protect their animals and plantsfrom health risks associated with imports; this right took priority over trade.
However, he said, to ensure that this right is not misused for protectionist purposes, one of the
basic obligations under the SPS Agreement is that measures to protect health should be based on
scientific principles. They should not be maintain ed without sufficient scientific evidence, although
the agreement also allows for the adoption of provisional measures in cases where relevant scientific
evidence is insufficient. This is why health risk a ssessment and reference to internationally developed
health standards are critical elements of the SPS Agreement, he said.
How to go about ensuring a scientific justification in practice is a major implementation issue
for WTO Members, in particular for many developing countries, Mr Wolter observed.PRESS/183
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ENDA second idea behind the workshop was to bring capital-based developing country officials
working in the areas of food safety, animal health or  plant health to Geneva so as to enable them to
also participate in the regular meeting of the SPS Committee scheduled for 21-22 June. The US
Department of Agriculture provided funding which allowed the WTO to sponsor the participation of
six experts from least-developed countries.
During the course of the workshop, participants discussed how the notion of science had been
brought into the SPS Agreement during the negotiations, including the early contacts with the three
relevant standard-setting organizations (F AO/WHO Codex Alimentarius Commission, Office
Internationale des Epizooties (OIE) and FAO International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC)).
Participants also heard presentations on the fundamentals of risk analysis, as well as details on the
provisions of the SPS Agreement directly relating to scientific justification.
Throughout the workshop, experts from Member governments and from observers
organizations presented case studies of actual  risk assessments made by countries and how these had,
in the real world, resulted in specific health-related measures aimed at ensuring food safety, or the
protection of animal or plant health. The health issues discussed in the workshop are the kind of
specific trade concerns which WTO Members have also been raising at the regular meetings of theSPS Committee.
A summary report of the workshop and presentations made by experts, will be put on the
WTO’s Internet website in July 2000.