G/TBT/GEN/178  
 
29 May 2015  
(15-2797)  Page: 1/3  
Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade  Original: English  
 
 WORLDWIDE HARMONIZED REGULATIONS – OVERCOMING TECHNICAL BARRIERS TO 
TRADE IN A SPECIFIC SECTOR : AUTOMOTIVE VEHICLES  
This document contains information provided by the UNECE at the TBT Committee meeting of  
18-19 March 2015 under Agenda Item 5 (Update by Observers). 
 
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1.  UNECE would like to recall that its World Forum for Harmonization of Vehicle Regulations (WP.29) is a unique worldwide forum within the institutional framework of the UNECE Inland 
Transport Committee, developing a regulatory framework allowing the market introduction of 
innovative vehicle technologies, while continuously improving global vehicle safety. The framework allows participating countries to decrease vehicles emissions and energy consumption, while at the 
same time reducing technical barriers trade. This last element is of particular importance for this 
audience. TBTs in this sector are in fact eliminated entirely for participating parties because once a vehicle or one of its parts is certified in accordance with the UN Regulations it can be delivered and 
sold worldwide among Contracting Parties without further tests or certification.  
2.  Whenever a company designs a prototype of an automotive component or vehicle they must 
prove that it meets the performance requirements  of the 1958 Agreement’s Regulations. Once that 
is done, the manufacturer can follow the motto “certified once, sold everywhere.” That company 
engraves the E on their parts, and a car maker in any country can buy it with the confidence that 
it meets the Regulations. Companies can trade across borders and to different regions without a costly re-verification process which would be passed on to the consumer. 
3.  Three UN Agreements, adopted in 1958, 1997 and 1998, provide the legal framework allowing 
Contracting Parties to establish regulatory instruments concerning motor vehicles and motor vehicle equipment, as follows: 
 UN Regulations, annexed to the 1958 Agreement; 
 United Nations Global Technical Regulations (UN GTRs), associated with the 1998 
Agreement; and 
 UN Rules, annexed to the 1997 Agreement. 
4.  UN Regulations contain provisions (for vehicl es, their systems, parts and equipment) related to 
safety and environmental aspects. They include pe rformance-oriented test requirements, as well 
as administrative procedures. The latter address the type approval (of vehicle systems, parts and 
equipment), the conformity of production (i.e. th e means to prove the ability, for manufacturers, 
to produce a series of products that exactly match the type approval specifications) and the 
mutual recognition of the type approvals granted by Contracting Parties. 
5.  UN GTRs contain globally harmonized performance-related requirements and test procedures. 
They provide a predictable regulatory framework for the global automotive industry, consumers 
and their associations. They do not contain administrative provisions for type approvals and their mutual recognition. G/TBT/GEN/178 
 
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  6.  UN Rules concern periodical technical inspections of vehicles in use. Contracting Parties 
reciprocally recognize (with certain conditions) the international inspection certificates granted according to the UN Rules. 
7.  The same regulatory framework is also instrumental for fostering and facilitating cross-border 
trade, since provisions established under the 1958  Agreement include the reciprocal acceptance of 
approvals of vehicle systems, parts and equipment issued by other Contracting Parties. To address 
the issue of the reciprocal recognition of the entire vehicle, WP.29 launched the International 
Whole Vehicle Type Approval (IWVTA) project in March 2010. As a follow up of this activity WP.29 
will likely adopt the Revision 3 of the Agreement this year.  
8.  The revision of the 1958 Agreement is a strate gic key element aiming at making adoption and 
implementation of international regulations more  attractive for emerging economies. The new 
1958 Agreement and its new added UN Regulation No. 0 on IWVTA, will substantially reduce the 
administrative burden related to the introduction of the same vehicle model in countries which are Contracting Parties to the 1958 Agreement. 
1  ACHIEVEMENTS IN 2014 
9.  In the framework of its activities in  2014, WP.29 achieved the following results: 
10.  In 2014 two new United Nations Vehicle Regulations entered into force and two new ones 
were adopted all annexed to the 1958 Agreement aimed at improving vehicles' safety and 
environmental performance: 
 The new Regulation on Retrofit Emission Control Devices (REC) for heavy-duty vehicles, , 
provides better protection of the environment by retrofitting vehicles in use to more 
stringent pollutant emission levels.  
 The new UN Regulation on motor vehicles with regard to their recyclability facilitates the 
possibility to recycle equipment and materials of vehicles after their end of life. These 2 
Regulations entered into force in June 2014. 
 The new UN Regulation on Hydrogen and Fuel  Cell Vehicles (HFCV), provides safety 
performance requirements of HFCV with re gard to their compressed hydrogen storage 
systems. 
 The new UN Regulation on Pole Side Impacts (PSI), results in more stringent safety 
performance requirements for vehicles in case of a lateral impact with a pole obstacle. 
11.  Existing UN Regulations were also adapted to the technical progress with 70 amendments.  
12.  WP.29 continued its activities to develop performance requirement for intelligent vehicle 
systems and driver assist systems for automated vehicles and, thus, to pave the way for future autonomous vehicles.  
13.  Additionally in 2014, the first phase of Worl dwide harmonized Light vehicle Test Procedures 
(WLTP) was adopted to better reflects the real traffic conditions and provides more accurate information on fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.  
2  CHALLENGES  
14.  In the framework of sustainable transport ac tivities the World Forum is addressing not only 
new fuel/energy efficient and innovative vehicle technologies, but also Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), inter-modal transport links and inter- sectoral links. In particular, WP.29 tackles the 
necessity of considerable changes in the energy se ctor needed for shifting the road vehicle fleet 
from using fossil fuels to the use of electricity. 
15.  To make this a reality the World Forum has already adopted a UN Regulation on HFCV and UN 
Global Technical Regulation. In the future, by 2016, the World Forum intends to adopt a new UN 
Global Technical Regulation on safety of Electric  Vehicles addressing their use and the event of G/TBT/GEN/178 
 
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  crashes. It will be the first international Regulation on this matter that will address 35 countries in 
all 5 continents.  
16.  The World Forum will continue its work programme on the worldwide harmonization of vehicle 
regulations, taking into account the need to cont inuously adapt them to the technical progress and 
to include new performance requirements for innovative technologies. Among these Autonomous 
vehicles.  
17.  In addition to the above, two important u pdates concern the activities of the UNECE Working 
Party on Regulatory Cooperation and Standardization Policies, as follows:  
a. The 2015 Session of the Working Party will ta ke place from 1 to 3 December, back to 
back to the Conformity Assessment Work shop organized by the World Standards 
Cooperation (WSC)  
b. At the 2015 Annual Session, the Working Party will review one of its most important 
recommendations, on the “International Model for Technical Harmonization”. We hereby invite all interested delegations to participate in the work of the task force for the 
revision of this Recommendation.  
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