. /.   WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  G/SPS/49 
14 July 2008 
 
 (08-3380) 
Committee on Sanitary a nd Phytosanitary Measures  
  
 
PROCEDURE TO MONITOR THE PROCESS 
OF INTERNATIONAL HARMONIZATION 
 
Tenth Annual Report
 
 
Adopted by the Committee on 25 June 2008 
 
 A. 
INTRODUCTION  
1. At its meeting of 15-16 October 1997, the SPS Committee adopted a provisional procedure to 
monitor the process of international harmonization a nd the use of international standards, guidelines 
or recommendations, as provided for in Articles 3.5 a nd 12.4 of the SPS Agreement.  This procedure 
was subsequently revised by the Committee in October 2004.1  The Committee decided to extend the 
provisional monitoring procedure for a further two-year period in July 1999, and again in July 2001, and in June 2003 the Committee further extende d the provisional procedure for 36 months.
2  On 28 
June 2006, the Committee agreed to extend the provi sional procedure indefinitely, and to review its 
operation as an integral part of the periodic Revi ew of the Operation and Implementation of the 
Agreement under Article 12.7.3  The next such Review is to be  completed in 2009, and every four 
years subsequently. 
2. The Committee has previously adopted nine annual reports on the monitoring procedure.4  
These reports summarize several standards-related is sues that the Committee has considered and the 
responses received from the relevant  standard-setting organizations.  
B. NEW ISSUES  
3. Since the adoption of the Ninth Annual Report in July 2007, [no] new issue has been raised 
under this procedure.   
C. PREVIOUS ISSUES  
4. Since the adoption of the Ninth Annual Report, there has been [no] further discussion on any 
issue previously raised under this procedure. 
D. RESPONSES RECEIVED FROM THE RELEVANT STANDARD -SETTING ORGANIZATIONS  
5. No further information has been provided by the relevant standard-setting organizations 
regarding issues previously raised. 
                                                      
1 G/SPS/11/Rev.1. 
2 G/SPS/14, G/SPS/17 and G/SPS/25. 
3 G/SPS/40. 
4 These were circulated as G/SPS/13, G/SPS/16, G/SPS/18, G/SPS/21, G/SPS/28 , G/SPS/31, G/SPS/37 
G/SPS/42, and G/SPS/45.  G/SPS/49 
Page 2  
 
  E. 
REVIEW OF THE PROCEDURE  
6. At the meeting of the SPS Committee in J une 2008, a number of Members expressed 
concerns that the current procedure was not provid ing for an effective monitoring of the use of 
international standards.  They noted that th e recommendation that Members should also submit 
notifications of new or modified SPS measures which were based on the relevant international 
standards, contained in G/SPS/7/Rev.3, could pr ovide useful information regarding the use of 
international standards.   
7. The IPPC reported that the Commission on Phytosanitary Measures had requested the 
development of a system to monitor the use of I PPC standards, which could also identify emerging 
issues before they became disputes.  A standards im plementation officer was to be appointed with this 
responsibility.5  The new mechanism would allow the iden tification of which IPPC standards were 
being used, and a database would be established.  The IPPC observed that in some cases standards 
were not implemented because they were not relevant to the situ ation of an individual member. 
8. The OIE noted that they had no mechanism for monitoring the implementation of OIE 
standards, and were not planning to develop a monitoring mechanism.  
9. The Committee agreed to consider some of the suggestions that had been made and 
experience gained from the new recommended pr ocedures on transparency, when it undertook the 
next review of the provisional procedure to monito r the process of international harmonization and the 
use of international standards, guidelines or recommendations. 
 
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5 See document G/SPS/GEN/849.