. /.   WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  G/SPS/W/202 
20 June 2006 
 
 (06-3008) 
Committee on Sanitary and  
Phytosanitary Measures Original:   Spanish 
 
 
 
SECOND REVIEW OF THE OPERATIO N AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE 
AGREEMENT ON THE APPLICATION OF SANITARY AND 
PHYTOSANITARY MEASURES 
 
Undue Delays  
 
Communication from Chile 
 
  The following communication, received on 13 June 2006, is being circulated at the request of 
the delegation of Chile.  
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 1. The delegation of Uruguay was the first to ra ise this problem in 2005 and was supported by a 
large number of Members.  Undue de lays were included as one of the priorities in the action plan that 
arose from the review of the Agreement and were highlighted by Costa Rica, inter alia , at the 
Committee's meeting in March 2006. 
2. There are frequently delays in procedures aut horizing the entry of products and in many 
instances these are not due to technical reasons.  The following are some of the procedures that lead to 
this type of delay: 
• Public hearings, for which procedures at the national level vary greatly, usually lasting 
for one to three years.  There are some delays in which the country concerned has reasonable doubts as to the real cause of the delay, particularly where general procedures allow temporary measures to be adopted while the administrative procedure 
is going ahead. 
• Post-technical decision authorization.  After a technical study into the case has been 
conducted and a decision proposed, in some Members the procedure requires the technical study to be submitted to other aut horities of a political nature for analysis and 
approval and here again delays vary.  In many cases, doubts arise concerning the nature 
of this further analysis, which go es beyond purely technical aspects. 
• Technical procedure.  In this procedure, w ith a view to more scientific independence, 
some countries have set up groups of independe nt experts whose decisions are virtually 
final.  In some instances, the country that is the subject of the decision may not lodge 
an appeal nor provide technical background ma terial and the authority concerned states 
that the decision has already been taken at this  level and there is little to be done.  Even 
when there are obvious errors, there is  little flexibility to revise decisions. G/SPS/W/202 
Page 2  
 
  3. Many Members do not use such procedures and th e matter can therefore be concluded fairly 
rapidly after the technical stage has ended.  Con sequently, these countries could be at a disadvantage 
in the negotiating phase in relation to authorization of products.  Members such as those mentioned in 
the preceding sentence are considering the adop tion of some of the post-technical decision 
mechanisms, which would obviously impair th e flexibility of the system in general. 
4. From the WTO perspective, the most appropr iate solution would be to speed up trade 
liberalization, harmonize transparency and create an intermediate procedure in which the time-limits 
for formalizing technical decisions are shorter and there are no delays which raise doubts as to 
whether they are justified.  The SPS Committee could help to monitor delays through formal 
notifications or simply information at its meetings  when there are excessive delays lasting for over 
two years after a technical decision has been taken. 
5. At the same time, the technical process must not  take any longer than needed, for example, 
there could be a bilateral agreem ent between parties on the steps, deadlines and responsibilities and on 
the total estimated time.  If the delays during this  technical stage exceed wh at has been agreed and 
there are no substantiated reasons for this, th e Committee could be notified and the reference 
organizations present at the meeting could be give n a hearing.  The Committee should be given the 
information needed to identify cases and then reasons  for delays, so as to examine the definition of 
"undue delays" and subsequently  consider the procedures to be  recommended to prevent them 
because of their impact on application of the Agreement. 
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