WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  G/SPS/W/211 
26 June 2007 
 (07-2682) 
Committee on Sanitary and 
Phytosanitary Measures Original:   Spanish 
 
 
 
MAXIMUM RESIDUE LEVELS FOR PEST ICIDES – IMPACT ON EXPORTS 
FROM DEVELOPING COUNTRIES 
 
Communication from Argentina  
 
  The following communication, received on 22 June 2007, is being circulated at the request of 
the delegation of Argentina.  
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I. CODEX MAXIMUM RESIDUE LEVELS (MRLS) – BACKGROUND 
1. At the 39
th Session of the Codex Committee on Pestic ide Residues (CCPR), held in China 
from 7 to 12 May 2007, the Netherlands, as former Chair of the CCPR, prepared a " Discussion Paper 
about Enforcement of Codex MRLs "1, in the light of discussions at the 38th Session of the CCPR. 
2. The paper analyses the problems affecting the international food trade which stem from the 
establishment of national pesticide residue limits that are stricter than those of the Codex 
Alimentarius, when such limits are not supported by  a risk analysis based on recognized scientific 
evidence. 
3. During the discussions, members pointed out in pa rticular that exporting countries, especially 
developing countries, were confronted with di fferent values of MRLs established in importing 
countries, for the same compound and same commodity.  They also noted that, in some cases, national 
regulations did not take Codex MRLs into account.2 
4. The paper concludes3 that: 
(a) Countries have the legal right to establis h appropriate levels of protection based on 
risk assessments and supervised trials, and to apply these levels to products of the 
local market to enforce national authorization; 
 
(b) the national aspect of MRL enforcement is  different from the acceptance of products 
in international trade; 
 
(c) Codex MRLs are safety standards established on the basis of worldwide risk 
assessment and are recognized as an international benchmark by the WTO in the 
context of the SPS Agreement; 
                                                      
1 CX/PR 07/39/10. 
2 CX/PR 07/39/10, paragraphs 3 and 6. 
3 CX/PR 07/39/10, paragraphs 13 and 15 in fine . G/SPS/W/211 
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(d) imposing stricter limits without thorough sci entific justification is considered to be a 
barrier to trade. 
 5. It emerges from the above-menti oned paper and discussions that  the main areas of concern 
are: 
(a) The establishment of national MRLs that are stricter than those set forth by the Codex 
Alimentarius; 
 
(b) in many cases there is no evidence fro m which to ascertain that national MRLs 
stricter than the Codex or the elimination of national limits have the necessary 
scientific backing; 
 
(c) the setting of national MRLs at detection level, for reasons unrelated to safety and 
without scientific justification; 
 
(d) the problems faced by developing countries as a result of such practices on the part of 
major importing countries. 
 6. During the discussions, the secretariat and several  members said that the situation described 
in the paper prepared by the Netherlands was bey ond the CCPR's terms of reference since the problem 
was trade-related and should be discussed in the WTO, and recommended that committee members 
take any such concerns they may have to the SPS Committee. 
7. Lastly, during a tense discussion which reveal ed marked differences of opinion about this 
suggestion regarding procedure, it was agreed th at the Codex Commission (Rome, 2-7 July 2007) 
would be informed of the discussion and that its guidance would be sought as to where and how the 
issue should continue to be addressed. 
II. OUTLINE OF THE PROBLEM FROM A SYSTEMIC PERSPECTIVE 
8. The SPS Agreement recognizes that Members have  a fundamental right to establish sanitary 
and phytosanitary measures which they deem suitabl e to ensure an appropriate level of sanitary 
protection
4, provided the right is not misused with protectionist intent so that unnecessary or 
unjustified barriers are erected in international trade. 
9. The SPS Agreement contains a number of provi sions to qualify Members' freedom to adopt 
and implement SPS measures that could affect inte rnational trade, the most important being: 
 (a) A requirement that SPS measures have a scientific basis5; 
 
(b) a requirement for Members to adopt in ternational standards, harmonizing their 
national legislation with the provisions  issued by relevant international 
organizations.6 
 10. In short, the system aims to ensure that SPS measures are science based, that they are 
"necessary" for the protection of human, animal or plan t life or health and that they do not constitute a 
                                                     
 
4 First preambular paragraph and Article 2.1. 
5 Articles 2.2 and 5.1. 
6 Sixth preambular paragraph and Article 3.  G/SPS/W/211 
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  disguised or unjustified restriction on international trade.7  In other words, the SPS Agreement seeks 
to establish a "delicate balance" between the ri ght of Members to safeguard health and the non-
establishment of unjustified restrictions in international trade. 
III. MRLS AND THE CODEX ALIMENTARIUS 
11. International harmonization of food safety by the Codex has taken on particular relevance8 
since the entry into force of the SPS Agreem ent within the framework of the WTO.   
12. MRLs are sanitary measures which can affect ma rket access and must therefore be considered 
in the light of the SPS Agreement.9 
13. As the paper by the Netherlands indicates clear ly, since MRLs adopted within the framework 
of the Codex amount to food safety standards estab lished on the basis of worldwide risk assessment 
and are recognized by the WTO as an international benchmark in the context of the SPS Agreement, 
any stricter limits imposed without scientific jus tification or on the basis of subjective concepts 
unrelated to the SPS Agreement, such as references  to good agricultural practices, are considered 
barriers to trade.10 
14. Governments must therefore be very careful wh en establishing limits that are stricter than 
those set by the Codex and ensure that the various  commitments assumed at multilateral level are not 
breached. 
15. In this regard, it should be noted that a number of countries have developed11 food standards, 
including MRLs, which in some cases are based on supervised trials performed exclusively in the 
country or group of countries adopting the standards.  This may cause problems where a product is not grown in the importing country or where the pestic ide in question is not used in that country or 
group of countries, as in both cases MRLs tend to be automatically set at the limit of quantification 
(for example, a value of 0.01 mg/kg). 
16. Moreover, there may be differences
12 in the results of supervised trials performed in different 
parts of the world, so that the setting of MRL values is influenced by the particular characteristics of 
each region, and the conditions and special characteri stics of production in the exporting countries are 
overlooked. 
17. MRLs are thus an obvious example of sanitary measures which must be set on harmonized 
international standards to avoid their becoming unj ustified restrictions to international trade. 
18. It should be noted in this respect that for many of the active substances used by food-
exporting countries in relation to the products applied there are no Codex limits. 
19. Argentina points out by way of example – and suggests that Members carry out surveys of 
their own – that of the 345 active substances currently registered to treat various crops that form part 
of Argentina's exportable supply of agricultural pr oducts, only 110 (i.e. 31.8 per cent) have Codex 
MRLs. 
                                                      
7 Articles 2.1 and 2.3 
8 Reaffirmed by paragraph 15 of document CX/PR 07/39/10. 
9 Article 1.1. 
10 CX/PR 07/39/10, paragraph 15. 
11 CX/PR 07/39/10, paragraph 11. 
12 CX/PR 07/39/10, paragraph 11. G/SPS/W/211 
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  IV. DEVELOPING COUNTRIES AND HARMONIZATION 
20. From a legal perspective, scientific justifica tion for the measures ensures objectivity, although 
in the event of a dispute it implies an almost in surmountable restriction for developing countries, 
which do not have the necessary resources or scientific  analyses to demonstrate the inconsistency of a 
measure that has been imposed on them unfairly. 
21. Moreover, in many cases, the removal of the active substances from the registers of the 
import markets occurs not for scientific, but for pur ely commercial reasons, a nd here too scientific 
and financial resources are needed to demonstrate in consistency with the SPS Agreement.  Hence the 
importance of adopting measures that meet internati onal standards, which, as mentioned before, enjoy 
a presumption of necessity and consistency with the SPS Agreement and the GATT 1994. 
22. Exporting countries frequently have to adopt th e MRLs for pesticides set in their import 
markets or to remove pesticides from their registers in order to ensure that their products have access 
to external markets.  This results in higher pr oduction costs, with serious consequences for the 
competitiveness of exports from developing countri es that do not subsidize export production. 
23. It should be recalled that at the Fourth WTO Ministerial Conference, held in Doha, Qatar, 
from 9 to 13 November 2001, the Directors-General of the FAO, OIE, WHO and WTO, together with 
the President of the World Bank, circulated a join t declaration aimed at strengthening the capacity of 
developing countries to implement science-based measures, meet the commercial requirements of 
trade partners, and participate fully in  international standard-setting bodies.
13 
V. CONCLUSION 
24. Bearing in mind the relevance of this issue and its direct relationship with market access14, the 
delegation of Argentina proposes that: 
 (a) The SPS Committee set up appropriate me chanisms to ensure that the Codex 
Alimentarius envisages and/or accelerates work on establishing pesticide MRLs for substances of interest to Members which export agri-foods, and that it urge Members 
in all cases to provide the scientific information available to them so as to make 
technical work possible; 
  (b) a mechanism be introduced to monito r the establishment of national MRLs for 
substances that have Codex MRLs; 
  (c) procedures be defined to facilitate, a nd secure the transparency of, risk assessments 
which support MRLs that are more demanding than those of the Codex; 
  (d) the SPS Committee analyse its own areas of responsibility and those of the Codex 
with a view to securing effective monito ring of the mechanisms and procedures 
established; 
 
                                                     
 
13 WT/MIN(01)/ST/97, 11 November 2001. 
14 Under the agenda item "Specific trade concerns " at SPS Committee meetings, there have been 
12 submissions calling into question domestic regulation of MRLs on grounds of inconsistency with multilateral 
obligations.  G/SPS/W/211 
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   (e) the Committee make a recommendation to the Codex Alimentarius Commission, at 
its next session in Rome, to approve the d ecision to continue addressing this issue at 
its highest decision-making level and in the most appropriate technical fields. 
 
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