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What is the WTO?

What is the WTO?. 144 governments (26 acceding countries) set of legally binding agreements, including SPS negotiated by governments and ratified by their legislatures an intergovernmental institution with committees to monitor implementation of agreements, procedures to settle disputes.

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What is the WTO?

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  1. What is the WTO? • 144 governments (26 acceding countries) • set of legally binding agreements, including SPS negotiated by governments and ratified by their legislatures • an intergovernmental institution with committees to monitor implementation of agreements, procedures to settle disputes

  2. Principles of the WTO • Most-favored nation treatment • Non-discrimination • National treatment • Transparency • How does SPS fit in?

  3. WTO Structure

  4. Trade and Health: relevant WTO Agreements • Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) • General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) • Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) • Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS)

  5. World food and agriculture trade • Over US$ 580 billion agricultural products • US$ 400 billion food trade per year • About 500 million tons of food products

  6. World food trade • About 75% is exports from and imports into industrialized countries, however • More than 50% of fruits and vegetables, sugar, non-alcoholic beverages, fish and fishery products are exported from developing countries

  7. (1997) United States France Netherlands Germany United Kingdom (US$ billions) 59.48 (13.0%) 38.09 (8.3%) 29.52 (6.4%) 23.93 (5.2%) 18.77 (4.1%) Main food exporters

  8. (1997) Japan United States Germany United Kingdom France (US$ billions) 49.59 (10.1%) 44.73 (9.1%) 39.41 (8.0%) 29.29 (6.0%) 26.68 (5.4%) Main food importers

  9. Trends in agricultural trade* • Agricultural exports represent over 12% of developing country total exports, compared to 8.8% for developed countries • Since 1994 agricultural imports from developing countries grew faster than from other sources * does not include fishery and forestry products

  10. Trends in trade (cont.) • Share of developing countries in world agricultural exports rose to 38% in 1998 • Almost 40% of total developing country agricultural exports went to other developing countries

  11. Why an SPS Agreement? • Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture • Article XX (b) • Why wasn’t the TBT Agreement sufficient?

  12. The TBT Agreement has a wider scope • It applies to all • technical regulations • standards • conformity assessment procedures but… • its provisions do not apply to SPS measures TBT SPS

  13. World Trade Organization154 rue de LausanneGeneva, 1211 Switzerlandwww.wto.orgemail: enquiries@wto.orgfax: 41 22 739 5760

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