WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  G/SPS/W/197 
13 June 2006 
 (06-2833) 
Committee on Sanitary a nd Phytosanitary Measures Original:   English 
  
 
 
SECOND REVIEW OF THE OPER ATION AND IMPLEMENTATION 
OF THE SPS AGREEMENT 
 
Review of the Implementation of Transparency Provisions
 
 
Communication from Australia, New Zealand and the United States  
 
 
 The following communication, received on 6 June 2006, is being circulated at the request of the Delegations of Australia, New Zealand and the United States. 
 
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1. Because sanitary and phytosanitary measures have  the potential to restrict trade unnecessarily, 
the WTO Agreement on the Application of Sanita ry and Phytosanitary Measures establishes clear 
rules regarding the use of SPS measures.  Transparen cy is one of the fundamental principles, as it 
aims to achieve a greater degree of  clarity, predictability and informa tion about trade policies, rules, 
and regulations of Members.  The Agreement sets cl ear, detailed rights and obligations for food safety 
and animal and plant health measures which affect tr ade.  We believe that the transparency provisions 
of the SPS Agreement are vital to ensure that measur es taken to protect human, animal or plant life or 
health are made known to the interested public and other trading partners, comply with the provisions 
of the WTO SPS Agreement and avoid poten tial trade concerns among the Members. 
2. Australia, New Zealand and the United States recommend that the principal tasks for the 
SPS Committee with regard to implementation of the transparency provisions for the Committee 
should focus on strengthening developing country Me mbers' enquiry points, addressing the issues that 
have been raised by specific Members that are detailed below, and reviewing the Secretariat's 
handbook on transparency entitled "How to A pply the Transparency Provisions of the SPS 
Agreement" to better assess what progress Members have made in meeting their transparency 
obligations. 
3. This paper seeks to summarize issues raised so far by Members in the SPS Committee on the 
issue of transparency to generate discussion on how to ensure the full implementation of the 
transparency provisions of the Agreement. 
E
NQUIRY POINTS  
4. Many Members have acknowledged that more wo rk should be done by all Members to 
address the transparency provisions of the Agreement.  For example, according to 
G/SPS/GEN/27/Rev.15, 130 WTO Members had identified a national notification authority as of 
May 2005, and 136 had esta blished a SPS enquiry point.  In document G/SPS/R/37, the Secretariat 
reported that 18 Members still had not met these basic obligations .  How can the Committee best 
assist these Members, given our limited resource s, in meeting their basic obligations under the 
Agreement? G/SPS/W/197 
Page 2  
 
  5. Furthermore, how can the Committee assist Member s to better ensure that the enquiry points 
identified are operational and working to further the full implementation of the Agreement?   Should 
the Committee discuss the possibility of setting a sp ecific goal to work with these countries to create 
an enquiry point contact in each Member country and review effective operational practices as goals 
for this review?   
M
EMBER SPECIFIC ISSUES  
6. The Committee's review of the implementation of the transparency provisions could also 
discuss specific issues raised by various Members at previous Committee meetings and the 31 March 2006 Workshop on the Implementati on of the SPS Agreement.  These include: 
• Identifying good practices of numerous enquiry points in operation; 
 
• Increasing the use of informal translations; 
 
• Reviewing the number of languages used for notifications, keeping in mind the 
Committee's resource limitations;  
• Discussing the time periods provided to receive and consider comments from Members, 
keeping in mind national legislative mandates;  
• Reviewing whether the Committee should mandate that final rules are to be notified to 
the Secretariat as an addendum to the original notified measure;  
• Discussing if new measures that simply confor m to international standards be notified; 
 
• Studying how countries can most effectively utilize the notifications provided;  and 
 
• Forecasting how the creation of the Secretariat's SPS Database will address these issues. 
 
H
ANDBOOK ON TRANSPARENCY  
7. The Secretariat's Handbook on Transparency sh ould be used as a benchmark to allow 
individual Members to share their experiences, and to  ensure that notifications submitted comply with 
the guidelines previously agreed upon by the Committee. 
8. For example, can each Member say that: 
• Respective Notification Authorities have access  to or have relationships with the 
technical experts in the sanitary and phyto sanitary areas who will be writing regulations 
(potentially future SPS measures)?  
• Designated enquiry points are obtaining the answers from the relevant national bodies 
and replying to the country making the request for information as quickly as possible?  
• Measures that "significantly affect trade" ar e being notified to the Secretariat while in 
draft stage and without delay?  
• Notifications summarize the SPS regulation clearly, indicating its health protection 
objective? 
  G/SPS/W/197 
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  • Enquiry points provide copies of the proposed regulations upon request to other 
Members once a SPS measure has been notified?  Does the Notification Authority have the 
document in hand before making a notification?   Are they responding to all requests for 
documents within five working days?  
• SPS agencies are acknowledging the receipts of comments from other WTO Members 
and explaining how these comments are taken into account?  Are they providing any Member from which it has received comments with a copy of the corresponding SPS regulation as 
adopted?  
• Agencies are granting requests for extension of  the comment period wherever practicable 
especially with regards to products of particular interest  to developing count ry Members?  Is a 
30-day extension period normally provided? 
 
• Enquiry point or agencies are charging the same  cost for the documents as they would for 
their own nationals plus the co st of delivering the documents? 
 
• Developed country Members are supplying translations of the document or a summary in 
English, French or Spanish when otherwise not available?  
• Measures that have the potential to restrict trade, generally, do not enter into force in a 
period shorter than six months? 
 O
THER POTENTIAL PRIORITY AREAS  
9. In the Decision on Transparency of Special and Differential Treatment (G/SPS/33), the 
Committee agreed to notify special and differential treatment measures.  The Committee's goal is to 
review what progress, if any, has been made by Members to address these concerns through enhanced 
transparency by early 2008.  At that time, we w ill need to evaluate whether these practices become 
part of the Committee's permanent practice.  In an ticipation of this review, the Committee may also 
want to discuss whether there are other activities such as regionalization determinations, as individual Members have suggested, that should be notified. 
10. A full review of the transparency provisions of the Agreement will also protect a Member's 
right to enact measures that protect human, animal or  plant life or health and at the same time, address 
other important concerns before this Committee su ch as undue delays and the need for timelines for 
administrative decision-making processes.  A thorough review of Members' transparency obligations under the Agreement and a full discussion about our respective implementation of these obligations 
may shed some light on Members' respective scien ce-based processes and administrative procedures.  
A better understanding of each other's programs and legal requirements will allow the Committee to 
more effectively evaluate the need to consider a dditional work on undue dela ys and timelines as part 
of the Review of the Agreement. 
11. We strongly urge the Committee to begin work w ith a detailed study of the implementation of 
Article 7 and Annex B of the Agreement. 
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