G/TBT/GEN/355  
 
3 July  2023 
(23-4496) Page: 1/2 
Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade    
 
NON-PRESCRIPTIVE PRACTICAL GUIDELINES TO SUPPORT REGULATORS  IN THE CHOICE 
AND DESIGN  OF CONFORMITY ASSESSMENT PROCEDURES (CAP)  
REPORT1 BY MR. ANWAR HUSSAIN SHAIK (INDIA) TO THE TBT COMMITTEE  
This Report was delivered by the former Chairman of the WTO TBT Committee at the meeting 
of 21-23 June 2023.  
 
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1.  As the former Chair, I would now like to report on  the Committee's work during my chairmanship 
to advance our mandate to develop guidelines for conformity assessment procedures.  Thank you, 
Anna, for this opportunity.  
2.  By way of background, you may recall that the Committee agreed at the Eighth Triennial Review 
of the TBT Agreement to develop guidelines to support regulators in the choice and design of 
conform ity assessment procedures. Subsequently, in the Ninth Triennial Review, the Committee 
noted progress to date and agreed to finalize this work.  
3.  I was appointed  Chair of the Committee on 30 May 2022. At that point in time, the Secretariat 
had circulated to M embers earlier in the year an Elements Paper in document JOB/TBT/438  to inform 
Members' discussions on the topic. Several Members provided comments on this original Elements 
Paper during the first semester of 2022. These comments led to the circulation of a revised elements 
paper in docume nt JOB/TBT/438/Rev.1  on 14 June 2022. As Chair, my work on the development of 
the CAP Guidelines started on the basis of this revised Elements Paper. I invited Members to provide 
written comments on document JOB/TBT/438/Rev.1  by mid -August 2022. The comments that 
several Members provided were captur ed in an Aide -Memoire document, which was circulated to 
Members on 14 September as JOB/TBT/484.  
4.  Following Members' comments on the revised Elements Paper, I began consultations with 
Members on this important workstream of the Committee. This process was an open one in which 
participation  by all Members was always  welcome. To facilitate Members' work on the Guidelines, 
I asked the Secretariat to create a webpage for Members on the TBT Gateway to provide access to 
the latest version of the working text of the CAP guidelines, and other docum ents. Between the 
Autumn of 2022 and May 2023, I held 11 informal meetings and consultations with Members to 
advance the Committee's work on developing the CAP Guidelines.  
5.  Thanks to Members' efforts and to the good progress made in this format, the Secretariat 
circulated on 9 February 2023 a second revision of the Elements Paper in document 
JOB/TBT/438/Rev.2 , which has served as the basis of Members' discussions since.  
6.  When we began work, the num ber of issues where Members diverged was considerable. There 
were more than 27 issues on which Members had divergent views, including  a number of key issues, 
including the topics of "risk" and "first -party and second -party conformity assessment". Thanks to  
Members' hard work and constructive engagement we have managed to reduce the number of 
outstanding issues to just a handful.  
 
1 This report was delivered by the Outgoing Chairman of the TBT Committee (2022 -23) under agenda 
item 3 .(B)(ii). G/TBT/GEN/355  
 
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  7.  Following the last round of consultations held on 5 May, we posted the latest version of the text, 
which captures exactly where t hings stand today. This is available on the dedicated CAP webpage 
that I mentioned earlier. This is still a draft and there are only a few square brackets left in the text 
where Members have discussed alternative textual drafting. Work remains outstanding on the 
following issues:   
• discussing with Members the new language at paragraph 1.3 in relation to the terms 
"appropriate and proportionate", as well as the related paragraphs (Title, and 
paragraphs  2.1, 3.1, 3.2, and 3.12);   
• discussing with Members the Se ction 3.4 on "Confidence", which is still in brackets;  
• discussing with Members other key paragraphs, such as the language and placement of 
paragraph 3.4 dealing with "product"; the language of paragraph 3.5 dealing with 
"evidence"; the language of paragra ph 3.6 dealing with "level of confidence"; the language 
of paragraph 3.7 (and its title) dealing with "traceability and transparency"; a proposed 
new paragraph on "local needs and circumstances"; and the language in paragraph 3.13 
on "strategic planning".  
8.  As you see, there are still a few issues where Members still need to continue working to find 
common ground. However, I have no doubt that, under the leadership of the new Chairperson, 
Ms. Anna Vitie, Members will continue to advance and hopefully soon fi nalize this important work for 
the Committee. To conclude, I would like to thank Members once again for their trust and support 
during my chairmanship and for their hard work on the CAP Guidelines; Members' strong 
commitment to developing the Guidelines wa s the foundation of all the good progress we made in 
the last year. I  wish Members and the new Chair much success in concluding this important work 
for the Committee.  
 
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