. /.   WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  G/TBT/GEN/65 
14 December 2007 
 (07-5562) 
Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade  
  
 
ATTACHMENTS TO TBT NOTIFICATIONS  
 
Note by the Secretariat
1 
 
  
1. At the Fourth Triennial Review of the TBT Agreement, concluded on 9 November 2006, the 
TBT Committee agreed, with respect to texts of  notified technical regulations and conformity 
assessment procedures, to explore ways to attach to  the notification form a copy of the text of the 
notified measure.
2   
2. At the Fifth Special Meeting on Information Exchange, held on 7-8 November 2007, 
Members emphasized the importance of access to fu ll texts of notified documents and noted that 
hyperlinks in the notification format that linked di rectly to the notified text could greatly facilitate 
Members' work and reduced the number of enqui ries to the Enquiry Point.  At its meeting on 
9 November 2007, the Committee decided to estab lish a facility whereby Members may, on a 
voluntary basis, provide the WTO Secretariat with an electronic version of the notified draft text 
(attachment) together with the notification format.  This text will be stored on a WTO server and 
accessed through a hyperlink in the notification format. 
3. The mechanism is voluntary in nature.  The pur pose is to facilitate access to notified draft 
texts.  Information about the provision, storage an d language of attachments to TBT notifications is 
contained in the Annex to this document.3 
 
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1 This document has been prepared under the Secret ariat's own responsibility and is without prejudice 
to the positions of Members or to their rights or obligations under the WTO. 
2 G/TBT/19, para. 68. 
3For further assistance Members may wish to contact Mrs. Una Flanagan at the Trade and Environment 
Division (una.flanagan@wto.org).   
 G/TBT/GEN/65 
Page 2  
 
  ANNEX   
 
Attachments submitted together with WTO TBT Notifications
 
Guidelines  
 
1. General 
(a) An "attachment" is a draft regulatory text (full text) or a translation thereof referred to 
in a WTO TBT notification 
(b) An attachment will not be considered as a WTO document 
(c) The Secretariat cannot be held responsible for the content of attachments 
2. Provision of attachments to the WTO   
(a) Attachments shall be provided electronically in conjunction with the corresponding 
WTO TBT notification 
(b) Attachments will not be scanned by the WTO Secretariat if submitted in hard copy  
(c) Attachments shall be provided in PDF format only.  Notifications shall continue to be 
submitted in Word 
(d) Individual attachments shall not exceed 4MB in size;  multiple attachments may be 
provided 
3. Storage of attachments   
(a) Attachments will be stored on a WTO central server 
(b) Attachments stored on the WTO central server will be viewable online by clicking on 
the hyperlink in the notification form 
(c) Attachments can also be saved directly by the user 
(d) Attachments will not be circulated in hard copy form 
4. Language of attachments 
(a) Attachments may be provided in their original language   
(b) If available, Members may also provide translations 
(c) Attachments will not be translated by the Secretariat 
 
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