Private food standards and the World Trade Organization: some legal considerations

Wouters, Jan; Geraets, Dylan

doi:10.1017/s1474745612000237

Cited by 23 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Although whether and to what extent the SPS Agreement covers private standards is still a matter of controversy (Wolff, 2008;Wouters and Geraets, 2012), being a member of the ISO and taking part in (or at least actively monitoring) the makings of standards affecting their key exporting industries could help developing countries in a situation like Kenya to better comply with and utilize the rules of the WTO. Indeed, the ISO has an observer status on the WTO Committee on SPS Measures and has developed two widely adopted SPS-related international standards (e.g., ISO 22000 on food safety management system and ISO 22005 on traceability in the feed and food chain).…”

Section: Explanation 1: Countries Join the Iso As It Offers 'Exclusivmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inter‐Governmental Regimes and Recruitment to Private Regimes:GATT/WTOand theISO, 1951–2005

Lim

Prakash

2018

Global Policy

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Scholars of international relations and public policy recognize that quasi-private actors supply governance services alongside governmental actors. We explore how membership in the dominant trade regime, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/the World Trade Organization (GATT/WTO) influences countries' incentives to join the quasi-private regime, International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Both global regimes seek to remove trade barriers; the former focuses on tariff and non-tariff obstacles, and the latter on technical barriers. While any firm can subscribe to over 18,000 ISO standards, only national standards bodies, one per country, can become ISO members. We posit that given the substantial political costs of joining GATT/WTO and the relatively low entry barriers to joining the ISO, high trading countries might view the ISO as a (partial) functional equivalent of the GATT/WTO. Our empirical analysis of ISO membership dynamics over the period 1951-2005 lends support to our argument. Policy Implications• When faced with barriers to entry at the dominant trade regime, exporting firms and their governments may consider participating in private regimes to influence the trade environment.• As evidenced in the debates over the reform of UN Security Council and the emergence of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the institutional architecture and the rule-making powers of global regimes should reflect the power configurations of the 21st century, and not of the post-World War II order.• Creating private regimes in a policy area requires factoring in potential participants' positions with regard to the existing intergovernmental regimes.• While existing intergovernmental regimes are the key pillars of global governance, their rule-making systems privilege certain perspectives over others. Private regimes can foster polycentricity and bridge democracy deficits by allowing multiple stakeholders to create regimes with different rule structures.

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Section: Explanation 1: Countries Join the Iso As It Offers 'Exclusivmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inter‐Governmental Regimes and Recruitment to Private Regimes:GATT/WTOand theISO, 1951–2005

Lim

Prakash

2018

Global Policy

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“…It suffices that they ‘incentivize’ private agents to behave in a particular way in order to be themselves accountable before the WTO. Based on a later WTO case, Japan–Film , 10 one could argue that implicit government endorsement of a private standards body could allow evasion of that government's WTO obligations, unless that action was attributed to the government (Wouters and Geraets, 2012: 485).…”

Section: The Limits Of Unilateral Action By Developing Countries (Stamentioning

confidence: 99%

Private Standards and the WTO: Reclusive No More

Mavroidis¹,

Wolfe

2016

World Trade Review

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Private standards are increasing in number, and they affect trade, but their status in the WTO remains problematic. Standards-takers are typically countries with little bargaining power, who cannot affect their terms of trade, and, thus, even if they possess domestic antitrust laws, will find it hard to persuade standard-setters to take account of their interests. Our concern is to bring more of these standards within the normative framework of the trade regime – that is, we worry that these private forms of social order can conflict with the fundamental norms of transparency and non-discrimination. The WTO membership has consumed itself in endless discussions regarding mundane, legalistic issues, and has not moved at all towards addressing the real concerns of developing countries. We discuss one aspect of the problem: How reclusive should the WTO allow product standards to be? We argue that the WTO should adopt a ‘Reference Paper’ that would encourage its members to apply WTO rules for adopting those standards that already come under the aegis of the WTO to private standards. In the absence of centralized enforcement, utopia in the WTO legal paradigm, transparency disciplines imposed on standard-setters is the best the WTO could offer to those who are negatively affected by private standards.

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“…There is a large body of legal literature that analyses and compares the TBT and SPS Agreements (Pauwelyn, 2006;Marceau and Trachtman, 2014;Delimatsis, 2015c) and, in particular, the role of international standards in both Agreements (Schroder, 2009(Schroder, , 2011Wouters and Geraets, 2012;Villarreal, 2018). The following Sections briefly outline the historical context, the design, and the consequences of the TBT and SPS Agreements as they are discussed in the existing literature.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

International Standardization and Trade Regulation

Klotz

2024

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2019 (discussants Eric Arias and Peter Rosendorff), and the Swiss Political Science Association annual conferences in 2019 and 2020 (discussant Lukas Linsi and Oliver Westerwinter). I would also like to thank Michael Beer, Awilo Ochieng Pernet, and Martin Müller for facilitating my participation in the 42nd Codex Alimentarius Commission in Geneva, Switzerland in 2019.The WTI not only supported my doctoral studies in Switzerland but also actively facilitated my research visits abroad. Here, I would like to extend my gratitude to Tim Büthe, whose contributions to the literature not only ignited my interests in international standards but who also kindly hosted my research visit at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), Germany in 2018. Tim not only provided valuable feedback, he also provided me with the opportunity to present my research in his (post-) doctoral colloquium, and to meet my co-author Cindy Chen. In a more informal, but by no means less significant, note I would like to thank Toni Ser, who has not only been my best friend for

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Private food standards and the World Trade Organization: some legal considerations

Cited by 23 publications

References 9 publications

Inter‐Governmental Regimes and Recruitment to Private Regimes:GATT/WTOand theISO, 1951–2005

Inter‐Governmental Regimes and Recruitment to Private Regimes:GATT/WTOand theISO, 1951–2005

Private Standards and the WTO: Reclusive No More

International Standardization and Trade Regulation

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