WTO SPS Agreement

The Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures specifies the basic rules for food safety and animal and plant health standards.

It aims at:

• Protecting human and animal life from risks arising from additives, contaminants, toxins or disease-causing organisms in their food
• Protecting human life from plant- or animal-carried diseases
• Protecting animal or plant life from pests, diseases or disease-causing organisms
• Preventing or limiting damage to a country from the entry, establishment or spread of pests

Applying standards
Signatories to the agreement are encouraged to use international standards, guidelines and recommendations where they exist. They may apply higher standards justified by science or appropriate risk assessments provided that the approach is consistent and not arbitrary.

Changing standards
Consultations about the impact on trade or about implementation issues are conducted in the SPS Committee which is open to all WTO member states. New standards and guidelines are developed by three international organizations, recognized in the SPS agreement as standard-setting organizations. Standards are laid out in international codes such as the Code OIE, Codex Alimentarius and International Standards for Phytosanitary Measures. International standards are permanently redefined and improved by countries that are member to those organisations.