WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION   
G/TBT/W/345 
10 November 2011 
 (11-5798) 
Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade Original:   English 
 
 
 
PRINCIPLES OF INTERNATIONAL STANDARD SETTING 
 
Communication from India 
   The following communication, dated 4 November 2011, is being circulated at the request of 
the delegation of India. 
 
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1. This submission seeks to build upon the exis ting and explore additional principles of 
international standard setting in order to gain clarity  on the definition of an international standard in 
the context of the Agreement on Technical Barriers to  Trade or the TBT Agreement.  It may also be 
useful to look at the implementation of the exis ting principles of international standard setting. 
2. It is incongruous that though the term " international standard " finds mention in the TBT 
Agreement, there is still a lot of ambiguity on its precise definition. This creates a situation where 
standard setting bodies could potentially market th emselves as setters of international standards 
without any concrete parameters for independent verification. De finitional clarity is therefore 
important so as to strengthen standard setting and thereby their acceptability for adoption by 
Members. 
3. In this context, a TBT Committee Decision titled  " Decision of The Committee on Principles 
for the Development of International Standards , Guides and Recommendations with Relation to 
Articles 2, 5 and Annex 3 of the Agreement "1 in November, 2000 spelt out the principles and 
procedures to be observed, whenever interna tional standards, guides and recommendations are 
elaborated.  However, given the passage of time and bearing in mind the standard development 
process globally, it may be useful to revisit these prin ciples, including exploring new ones. It may also 
be useful to clarify these principles to facilitate de velopment of international standards by regulators. 
4. As a first step, we could revisit and possibly review the 6 principles stated in the 2000 TBT 
Committee Decision.  The principles are: 
I. TRANSPARENCY 
(a) The TBT Committee Decision incorporates el ements such as accessibility to work 
programmes, early notice, notification of draft standards, providing texts of the 
standard, adequate comment period for inter ested parties, prompt publication of final 
standard and publishing a work programme. 
(b) Some of the other ideas that could be explor ed for elaboration of this principle are: 
                                                      
1 G/TBT/9, 13 November 2000, para. 20 & Annex 4; G/TBT/1/Rev 10, 9 June, 2011.  
Annex B, page 46. G/TBT/W/345 
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  (i) Encouraging electronic working methods  at all stages of standard setting 
namely early notice, notification, texts, final publication and work 
programme rather than distribution of hard copies; 
(ii) The duration of the work programme should be at least once every six 
months; 
(iii) An adequate comment period for inter ested parties on the draft standard 
should not less than 60 days. This c ould be shortened only in case where 
urgent problems of safety, health or e nvironment arise or threaten to arise; 
(iv) Comments received from standardising bodies that have accepted the Code of 
Good Practice shall, if so requested be replied to as promptly as possible; 
(v) The fee charged for providing a copy of the draft standard or the most recent 
work programme should be reasonable and same for both domestic and 
foreign interested parties. 
II. OPENNESS 
(a) The TBT Committee Decision looks at th ree aspects of openness namely the 
participation being open to at least all WTO Members at all stages of standard setting; 
meaningful opportunities for developing Me mbers to participate; and whenever 
possible one standardising body representi ng a Member and participating in the 
standard setting process when there ar e multiple bodies within its territory. 
(b) Since the cost involved in participation c ould be a constraint for developing Members 
especially the LDCs, one option to increase the openness could be to have a 
mechanism within an Action Plan for deve loping Members of a standard setting body 
for providing assistance for participation of a representative from the LDCs or any 
zonal region of developing Memb ers in standard setting.  
III. IMPARTIALITY AND CONSENSUS 
(a) On impartiality, the TBT Committee Decision highlights the need for non-
discriminatory treatment for participants at all stages of the standard setting process.  
(b) One of the additions that could be suggested  to the principle of impartiality is that 
whenever possible, the standards should  capture the geographical, climatic and 
technological variations that exist acr oss different regions and Members. 
(c) In the case of consensus, the TB T Committee Decision defines it as " taking into 
account the views of all parties con cerned and to reconcile any conflicting 
arguments ".  In practice, however, many technical committees within the standard 
setting bodies have a provision of voting in case this consensus is not achieved. 
(d) Therefore, taking into account this reality in standard setting, one could explore the 
option of retaining the WTO definition of consensus where even a single negative 
vote would defeat this principle or else st ate that whenever voting is used, consensus 
would be achieved only when a significant number of participants (not less than 90 
per cent of those voting) give a positive vote. 
  G/TBT/W/345 
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  IV. EFFECTIVENESS AND RELEVANCE 
(a) The TBT Committee Decision defines this principle in terms of 3 elements namely: 
(i) Taking into account relevant regulatory or market needs, as feasible and 
appropriate, as well as scientific and technological developments in the 
elaboration of standards;    
(ii) Putting  in place procedures aimed at id entifying and reviewing standards that 
have become obsolete, inappropriate or  ineffective for various reasons;  and 
(iii) Putting  in place procedures aimed at improving communication with the 
World Trade Organization. 
(b) Some of the other aspects that could be explored under this principle are:  
(i) The need to have a regular review at an appropriate time interval to ensure 
that the standard is not obsolete and remains relevant in the light of new 
developments; 
(ii) Carry out, an impact assessment of the standard on international trade. 
V. COHERENCE 
(a) The TBT Committee Decision defines cohe rence in terms of cooperation and 
coordination with other releva nt international bodies. This is with a view to prevent 
overlap and duplication of work with other bodies. 
(b) In addition to the co-ordination and co- operation, one of the means of ensuring 
coherence is to create or obtain a database  of existing standards on a product by other 
relevant bodies in the early stages of formul ation of a standard. This would minimise 
the chances of duplication of the newly formulated standard with existing ones 
thereby increasing coherence. 
VI. DEVELOPMENT DIMENSION 
(a) The TBT Committee Decision emphasises th e need for technical assistance and 
capacity building for ensuring that developing Members are not excluded from 
participation.  
(b) One of the important aspects for implementation of this principle is for the standard 
setting body to have a specific Programme  or Action Plan for developing Members 
including LDCs. This could look at appropria te ways to increase the participation of 
Members in the technical committees. The standard setting bodies could also explore the option of virtual participation of these Members through electronic mode such as 
video conferencing etc. 
(c) Article 12 of the TBT Agreement which looks at special and differential treatment of 
developing country Members needs to be made  more effective so that international 
standards do not create unnecessary obstacles for exports from developing country 
Members. Therefore, it is important that  during the formulation of international 
standards, the special development, financ ial and trade needs of developing country 
Members are taken into account. G/TBT/W/345 
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  5. Finally, one could look at additional principl es that could form part of formulation of a 
relevant international standard. Some of these could be: 
 A. I
NSTITUTIONAL MECHANISM FOR STANDARD SETTING  
(a) The process of standard setting needs to be well streamlined in terms of 
documentation of policies and procedures for standard setting. Moreover, there must 
be appeal mechanisms in place against any Decision taken by technical committees or 
their subsidiary bodies. 
B. STAKEHOLDER CONSULTATIONS  
(a) All interested parties should be consulted in the standard setting process. These could 
include entities such as industry, government, consumer forums and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).  The mechanism for such consultations should 
be institutionalised. 
C. G
UIDELINES FOR TRANSPOSI TION TO NATIONAL STANDARDS  
(a) One of the issues for national standards se tting bodies is the need to transpose the 
relevant international standard with adequa te leeway for deviations based on climatic, 
geographical and technological considerations .  Therefore, it is important that there 
are guidelines that facilitate such a transposition exercise. 
6. This paper is intended to start discussions on the principles of international standard setting in 
the light of the forthcoming Sixth Triennial Review of the TBT Agreement.  It is without prejudice to 
our final position on the issue. 
 
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