Harmonising sanitary measures and resolving trade disputes through the WTO–SPS framework. Part I: a case study of the US–EU hormone-treated beef dispute

Abstract

The Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (the SPS Agreement) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), working together as the WTO–SPS Framework, seek to prevent the arbitrary and unjustified use of sanitary measures as barriers to trade. Specifically, the Framework 1. promotes the use of international food safety standards, 2. requires governments to base their sanitary measures on risk assessment, and 3. provides for equivalence determinations to accommodate the use of different measures that achieve the same health objectives. Using the first dispute to come before the Framework, namely the dispute between the United States (US) and the European Union (EU) regarding the export of US hormone-treated beef to the EU, the influence of the first two of these provisions in regulatory harmonisation and trade dispute resolution is examined. Recognising the limited resolution achieved in the dispute settlement process, several lessons may be learned: the ability of a trading partner to withstand a WTO ruling (and concomitant retaliation from the aggrieved partner) may undermine the larger goal of multi-lateral regulatory harmonisation, risk management problems are now viewed as legitimate factors in the risk assessment process, and delayed collaboration inhibits comprehensive dispute resolution.