. /.  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  G/SPS/W/167 
22 December 2004 
 
 (04-5616) 
Committee on Sanitary a nd Phytosanitary Measures Original:   Spanish 
  
 
REVIEW OF THE OPERATION AND IMPLEMENTATION 
OF THE SPS AGREEMENT 
 
Communication from Argentina
 
 
 
 The following communication, received on 20 December 2004, is being circulated at the request of the delegation of Argentina.  
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 1. It is Argentina's view that the Agreem ent on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures 
(SPS Agreement) establishes a proper balance betw een the right of a Member to determine its 
appropriate level of sanitary and phytosanitary prot ection and the guarantee that exercise of that right 
will not lead to arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination or erect an unnecessary barrier to international 
trade. 
2. The review of the operation and implemen tation of the Agreement affords a unique 
opportunity to maintain and emphasize this balan ce by analysing in detail the progress made by the 
Committee in explaining and clarifying the articl es of the Agreement and the difficulties still 
experienced in implementing some of its provisions. 
3. Argentina welcomes the submissions from othe r delegations and cons iders them to be a 
relevant basis on which to further our work in this review process.  In this connection, it has some 
comments to make on certain issues that have already been raised. 
I. TRANSPARENCY 
4. Transparency is a recurrent theme in the papers that have been submitted in the course of this 
review.  Argentina appreciates the interest Me mbers have shown in pursuing work on this key 
principle, not only because transpar ency cuts across all issues but, mo re especially, because of the role 
it plays in the multilateral trading system. 
5. The statistics of the notifications that are submitted each year
1 show clearly the difficulties 
that many Members of the WTO encounter in fulf illing their obligations under the SPS Agreement.  
These difficulties are real and widely acknowledge d, and we believe that the Committee should 
undertake the necessary work to overcome them. 
6. Some delegations have proposed that, in order to increase the level of transparency and, 
specifically, the number of notifications sent to th e WTO, proposed SPS measures that are "based on" 
or "conform to" should be notified as well if they  have the potential to affect world trade. 
                                                      
1 G/SPS/GEN/378 and GEN/498. G/SPS/W/167 
Page 2  
 
 7. Although what is proposed would be extremely useful in terms of strengthening the 
transparency principle, we believe that it would not eliminate the difficulties that many developing 
Members experience with enquiry points but, on th e contrary, would widen the gap between Members 
that comply and those that have great difficulty in doing so. 
8. Consequently, while we agree that it is impor tant to increase the cases in which proposed 
measures could be notified and, for example, information provided by Members on how comments 
received have been taken into account, we belie ve that this can be done in both instances on a 
voluntary basis  in those Members that are in a position to provide such information and, at the same 
time, step up efforts to strengthen the enquiry points of  developing countries so that they will be able 
to observe this rule in the future. 
II. REGIONALIZATION 
9. With regard to pest- and disease-free areas a nd areas of low pest and disease prevalence, 
Argentina considers that the work being done by the relevant internationa l organizations not only 
shows significant and consistent progress but also re flects the Members' concern to make headway in 
controlling pests and diseases. 
10. However, in many cases Members' efforts to rai se their sanitary status are not rewarded by 
better market access conditions, owing to the diffi culty of obtaining due recognition by importing 
Members.  This is illustrated by document G/SPS/W/162, which points out that the three difficulties in recognizing pest- or disease-free areas or areas of  low pest or disease prevalence identified in the 
First Review still remain.  They are:  (i) di vergence in interpretation and implementation of 
international guidelines;  (ii) an excessively lengt hy administrative process in importing Members;  
and (iii) the complexity of risk assessment. 
11. Argentina has experience of these difficulti es, in particular the excessively lengthy 
administrative process, which has been discussed in recent meetings of the SPS Committee.  We 
believe that in those meetings, a significant con sensus was reached on recognition of the difficulty 
and of the importance of overcoming it by means of  a clearly defined and specific process that lends 
certainty and predictability to the work on regionalization. 
12. We believe that in devising a procedure fo r recognition of pest- and disease-free areas and 
areas of low pest and disease prevalence in the SPS Committee , it is necessary: 
 - To make provision for the inclusion of other issues, as well as strictly technical and/or 
scientific ones; 
 
 - to establish a general framework for addressing trade commitments which is the 
specific domain of the SPS Committee, even  if it eventually becomes subject to 
specific OIE and IPPC technical regulations. 
 
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