RESTRICTEDWORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONG/TBT/W/87/Rev.1
30 September 1999
(99-4066)
Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade Original:  English
ON THE CONDITIONS FOR THE ACCEPTANCE AND USE OF
 INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS IN THE CONTEXT OF
THE WTO TECHNICAL BARRIERS TO
TRADE AGREEMENT
Note from the European Community
Revision
Background
1. At the meeting of the Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade held on 11 June 1999, the
European Communities’ paper G/TBT/W/87 of 14 September 1998:  “ On the conditions for
acceptance and use of international standards in the context of the TBT Agreement ” was discussed.
At that meeting, the EC offered to produce a simplified version of that paper to assist further
discussion of the questions it raised.
2. This paper presents the views of the European Community for discussion, and restates many
of the points made in document G/TBT/W/87.
I. INTRODUCTION
3. In order to ensure an effective application of the TBT agreement, it is necessary for
WTO Members to reach a consistent view of international standards.  It is also necessary to clarify the
principles that ought to apply to an international standardization body.
4. The EU also believes that a greater emphasis should be laid on the use of international
standards.  However, in order to make progress in th is field it is first necessary to concentrate on the
understanding of international standards and to agree on the principles that should apply tointernational standardization bodies.
II. PRINCIPLES FOR INTERNATIONAL STANDARDIZATION BODIES
5. The TBT Agreement and the Code of Good Practice give a privilege to international
standards.  This means that the international sta ndardization bodies have a more important role than
they did before the existence of the TBT Agreement.  In turn this implies that these bodies should beaccountable to a broad range of interests.  The EC suggests that this could be demonstrated if the
bodies observed the following principles:
(i) Status :  A distinction must be made between an international body and other
standardization bodies (i.e., national or regional).  Objectivity requires that standardization
bodies cannot claim two different levels of status (national, regional or international) for theircore activities at the same time.G/TBT/W/87/Rev.1
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(ii) Impartiality:  All countries with an interest in standardization must have access to
participation in the work. There should be intern ational control over the results, without either
discrimination or privilege as to the nationality of the participants. In the context of improvingaccess to participation by developing countries, it may be appropriate to use technical
assistance, in line with Article 11 of the TBT Agreement.
(iii) Openness:  Participation in the work of an international standardization body should
be possible on equal terms, without discrimination as to nationality.  Generally, participation
should take place through one delegation representing all relevant standardization bodies in a
country.
(iv) Transparency:  In the establishment of work programmes, and in the ultimate results,
which should be made publicly available on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.
(v) Effectiveness:  The work undertaken by international standardization bodies should
respond to market and regulatory needs, and the standards produced should be delivered on
time.  Work programmes and standards should be coherent both internally and with other
international standardization bodies, i.e., conflicting standards should not be maintained, and
national and regional standardization bodies should act coherently in international
standardization activities.
6. In order to give concrete form to these principles of accountability, it might be useful to draw
up a voluntary code of good practice, or a set of guidelines for international bodies, which might then
privilege international standards prepared by these bodies.
7. The proliferation of competing international bodies must be avoided.
8. In addition it should be clear how the existin g Code of Good Practice in Annex 3 of the
TBT Agreement should apply. For example, what organizations have accepted it in each country, and
if more than one, how the commitment operates.
III. PRINCIPLES FOR INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS
9. The TBT Agreement obliges WTO member governments to use international standards as a
basis for their legislation where appropriate. Because of the privilege that the Agreement gives to
international standards, it is essential to identi fy what they are. The EU suggests the following
properties that characterise an international standard:
A. T
HE ELABORATION OF INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS
(i) Drawn up by a recognized international standardization body  in accordance with
published rules that follow the principles for such bodies. (See Section II of this paper, for
example).
(ii) Established in full transparency  and openness to participation  at world level,
including open announcement of the project, announcement of public availability of a draft,
and active seeking of consensus at global level;
(iii) Prepared by global consensus - taking due account of all relevant interests, and
characterized by the absence of sustained opposition to substantial issues from any country;G/TBT/W/87/Rev.1
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B. THE NATURE OF INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS
(i) Clearly drafted, with a clear scope, giving requirements appropriate to the stated
scope. Performance based, where possible, and with objective means of determining
compliance;
(ii) Coherent with other international standards, that is, not giving requirements that vary
or contradict those of another international standard with a coincident or overlapping scope;
(iii) Non discriminatory, i.e. not intentionally favouring a particular supplier:(iv) Based on scientific or technical principles and objective reasoning; regularly
reviewed to reflect the state of the art;
(v) Publicly available at the world level, on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory
terms, including the right to transpose the inte rnational standard as a regional or national
standard.
IV. INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS AND TRADE
10. This section examines some issues related to the use of standards in legislation and the impact
on international trade.  The EC would like to sugge st the following approach to promoting the use of
international standards:
(i) There are limits to the need for regulation. Standards should be used voluntarily
wherever possible.
(ii) Should legislation be needed, it should refer to international standards for technical
content wherever possible, while the standards themselves remain voluntary.
(iii) More transparency on regulations is necessary and more information should be
provided on the regulations that make use of international standards.
(iv) As stated earlier, the set of international standards should be coherent, and standards
should not conflict.  If there were to be more than one international standard for particular
products or goods, and if two or more standards from different bodies were privileged under
the Code of Practice, then barriers to trade would be reinforced.
(v) Arrangements are needed for the co-operation between national, regional and
international standard ization .  This includes transposition of international standards into
regional or national standards.
V. INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS AND DEVELOPMENT
11. Constraints on developing countries should be taken into consideration in the standards
development process.  The impartiality and openness of any international standard ization  process
requires that developing countries are not excluded de facto  from the process.  As stated earlier in
Section 2, provisions for capacity building and/or technical assistance are important in this context.
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