International Standard Setting Organizations Research Articles

Accountability and Legitimacy in Global Health and Safety Governance: The World Trade Organization, the SPS Committee, and International Standard-Setting Organizations

Following the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the application of the WTO’s Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement (hereinafter ‘SPS Agreement), concerns over health and safety have become increasingly predominant in the international trade regime. While rulings under the WTO dispute settlement procedure, as in the case of European Communities – Measures Concerning Meat and Meat Products (Hormones) (hereinafter ‘EC-Hormones’) and European Communities – Measures Affecting the Approval and Marketing of Biotech Products (hereinafter ‘EC-Biotech(GMOs)’), have received most of the attention, these rulings based upon the SPS Agreement are not the only governance arrangements available in the WTO. The SPS Agreement also provides a forum – the SPS Committee – for debate over the health and safety concerns among Member States. This article reviews how the work of the SPS Committee fits into the recent WTO accountability debate. It examines how the SPS Committee provides for an accountability mechanism between Member States, thereby facilitating participation and promoting transparency. Furthermore, it focuses on the role of international standards, established by international standard-setting organizations, and addresses debates over the legitimacy of international standard-setting processes. This article also examines how ‘international regime complexity’ (or ‘regime interactions’) between the WTO and international standard-setting organizations relates to the questions of legitimacy and accountability. Finally, it concludes with a look at the question of the accountability of the SPS Committee itself.

Making the World Safe for Standard Setting

The stance of antitrust oversight of standard setting activities remains a work-in-progress. Over time, antitrust authorities have grown increasingly hospitable to cooperative standard setting efforts whereby jointly developed standards will facilitate the development of new products or services. In the information industries, such standards are ubiquitous and, moreover, are set by international standard setting organizations (SSOs) like the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). To be successful, SSOs must develop strategies to prevent firms from patenting technologies used in official standards and charging exorbitant royalties once a standard is adopted. In particular, SSOs face a range of options in terms of policies that govern the use of patents in official standards - even within the popular strategy of mandating reasonable and non-discriminatory (RAND) access to patents necessary to practice a standard. With multi-jurisdictional oversight of SSOs, the role of antitrust law - if inconsistent and overly aggressive - could be counterproductive. This paper argues that international antitrust authorities should be humble about second guessing policies of standard setting bodies related to patent policies or playing an aggressive enforcement role. By so doing, antitrust authorities will signal to standard setting bodies that they must rely fundamentally on their own strategies for ensuring compliance with their own policies. Such policies, for example, could include a mandate that firms disclose the relevant licensing terms and conditions before the body decides to endorse a particular technology as part of a standard. To be sure, there is still a role for antitrust authorities to sanction egregious abuses of the standard setting process, such as the Federal Trade Commission's action in Rambus, but such actions should be exceptional and not viewed as an alternative to a standard setting body's safeguards against abuses by firms that obtain patents on technologies necessary to practice the standard.

Papel y actuaciones de los Servicios Veterinarios respecto de la inocuidad de los alimentos en toda la cadena alimentaria

Both national Veterinary Services and international standard-setting organisations have now embraced risk assessment as an essential tool for achieving their goals. Veterinarians have key roles in all aspects of the control of food-borne hazards of animal origin, but additional specialist skills are necessary for assessing, managing and communicating risk. Further, the deployment of Veterinary Services must reflect the multi-functional aspects of public and animal health activities. A generic risk management framework provides a systematic process whereby food safety standards and other measures are chosen and implemented on the basis of knowledge of risk and evaluation of other factors relevant to protecting human health and promoting non-discriminatory trade practices. In this context, a number of countries are exploring new administrative and structural arrangements for competent authorities. The traditional focus of veterinary involvement in food safety has been in meat hygiene at the level of the slaughterhouse. While this role continues, the emerging 'risk-based' approach to food control requires increased involvement in other segments of the meat food chain, as well as other areas such as production of milk and fish. This more extensive role requires a wider skill base and establishment of effective networks with a different range of stakeholders.

Childhood leukemia and residential magnetic fields: Are pooled analyses more valid than the original studies?

The association seen in epidemiological studies between childhood leukemia and magnetic field strength in the child's home has been very important in influencing reviews of international groups and standard setting organizations. This association is usually based on the results of two published pooled analyses, which use definitions of exposure that differ from those of some the original studies. However, the results and conclusions of the pooled analyses differ from those of the three largest recent studies, which have the most sophisticated methodology and together account for the majority of the exposed cases at high exposure levels in the pooled analyses. These recent studies, using the exposure methods and the cut-off levels set a priori, each concluded that there was little evidence of any association. The pooled analyses, using different exposure measures and different cut-offs, conclude that an association exists at high exposure levels. It is not clear if the results of the pooled analysis are more valid than those of the recent major studies, although this has been often assumed in influential reviews.

Emerging Diseases and implications for global trade

Emerging diseases could have a devastating impact on international trade unless there is a change in the traditional approach to disease control and new holistic prevention and control strategies are adopted. The impact that emerging diseases will have on international trade will depend on several factors, such as the nature of the pathogen, the degree of co-ordination and integration between Veterinary Services and Public Health authorities, the ability to rapidly detect and respond to a disease appearance, and the existing trade relationship between countries. Strategies to control emerging diseases will be more effective if competent authorities and veterinary infrastructures in particular, integrate their public and animal health objectives into a single strategy. The co-ordinating role of international standard setting organisations such as the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) will be crucial. This paper discusses the events contributing to the appearance and spread of new emerging diseases and examines the changing roles of Veterinary Services and international organisations. Reference is also made to measures that can be taken towards minimising potential trade disruptions caused by the appearance of an emerging disease.

International trade and food safety in developing countries

The World Bank has been promoting the concept that access to markets is an important part in the development of its clients i.e. third world countries, and is increasingly demanding attention for the removal of restrictions imposed by developed countries on international trade, especially with respect to developing countries. The majority of trade-limiting factors in developing countries relate to economics, poor infrastructure and lagging skills; food safety is still mainly the responsibility of the consumers. Improving food safety along western standards, however, may carry considerable costs and price food out of reach of the poor. Therefore, introduction of new food safety tools and rules need to be affordable and build on local food management customs rather than simply imposing western standards that are expensive to monitor. World Bank experience of investing in food safety indicates a number of issues that frequently surface, including (i) confusion between quality and safety, (ii) over regulation, (iii) selective enforcement, (iv) lack of integration of food laws and regulations in the overall legislative system, (v) multiplicity of responsible agencies, and (vi) the mismatch between the standards required in OECD- and in an developing-countries. It is recommended to improve awareness, simplify rules, improve skills and infrastructure, adapt food safety monitoring to local conditions, and help formulating HACCPs for niche products from developing countries. It is also recommended to ensure stronger voice of the poor in food safety decisions, and a greater participation of the poor and poor countries in international standard setting organizations.

Working towards compliance with international standards

Developing countries are increasingly coming under pressure to improve their delivery of veterinary services as a prerequisite for entering the competitive arena of international trade in animals and animal products. The demands placed on developing countries by predominantly developed countries to comply with international disease prevention standards have also resulted in increasing demands on the financial, human and technological resources of these developing countries. The minimum requirements of the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures and the standards, guidelines and recommendations of international standard-setting organisations, such as the OIE (World organisation for animal health), are evaluated in terms of the opportunities embedded within these guidelines for developing countries. Such an evaluation indicates that the rights and obligations contained in these standards, guidelines and recommendations do not necessarily protect only the interests of developed countries but also encourage developing countries to work towards the levels of compliance and disease prevention required by their potential trade partners. The costs of this compliance can be reduced by exploiting more cost-effective alternatives for delivering services, when dictated by budgetary constraints. International organisations have illustrated on many occasions, and through a variety of development programmes, that they do indeed realise their responsibility towards developing countries in the areas of increased capacity building and technical assistance. If international organisations can refocus their interventions on the actual and specific needs of developing countries, then they can help to expedite the process of compliance with international standards.

THE HEALTH REGULATION OF BIOTECH FOODS UNDER THE WTO AGREEMENTS

This article provides a roadmap through the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreements that may have a bearing on the regulation of genetically modified food products in relation to human health, including the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement, Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade, and Article XX(b) of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. It also considers the roles of WTO-recognized international standard-setting organizations like the Codex Alimentarius Commission, and the interface between the WTO Agreements and the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety.