THE TIES THAT BIND WTO OBLIGATIONS

All CARIFORUM countries, except the Bahamas, are Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The WTO is the administrative body for the implementation of the WTO multinational trade agreements. As Members of the WTO, CARIFORUM Members are legally obligated to implement the international trade agreements. It is important that these agreements are well understood, since the pace and depth of implementing these commitments will have significant implications for agricultural development in developing Caribbean WTO member countries.

The Binding Regulatory Framework for Market Access

With the 8th Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations and the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995, agriculture generally, was subjected to a widening scope of trade regulations and agreements, directly through the Agreements on Agriculture and Application on Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Measures and indirectly, through rules of general application.

Agreement on Agriculture (AoA)

The WTO AoA seeks to reform principles and strengthen disciplines on agricultural policy in order to reduce distortions in agricultural trade caused by agricultural protectionism and domestic support policies of, particularly, developed countries. The AoA obligates member countries to reduce barriers to market access (high tariffs and traderestricting non-tariff measures), the level and extent of support to domestic producers and limit the use of measures that create conditions of unfair competition, specifically, export subsidies. Caribbean countries obligations fell largely within the Market Access commitments to establish maximum or bound tariffs. Tariff reduction commitments agreed to, also generally relate to reducing high tariffs to a final bound level for selected products. All Caribbean countries bound the final most favored nation (MFN) tariffs for most agricultural products at 100%, with some variations according to products and among countries, as notified in their Schedules. For Domestic Support commitments, Caribbean countries notified no trade-distorting measures (as classified in the Amber box) and their total domestic supports to agriculture were well within WTO-allowed levels. No Caribbean country notified use of Export Subsidies; hence export subsidy reduction commitments were not applicable.

The SPS agreement recognizes the sovereign right of every WTO member to take measures that may restrict trade and to implement national laws to protect human and animal life and health from foodborne risks; human life from plant/animal carried diseases; animal or plant life from pests, diseases, or disease causing organisms; and preventing/limiting other damage to a country from the entry, establishment or spread of pests.

Agreement on the application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures

The WTO SPS Agreement obligated countries to reform and upgrade their agricultural health and food safety systems depending on the status and operation of the systems at the time when the Agreement took effect in 1995. The establishment and notification of single notification authorities and enquiry points, in particular, are the two unequivocal obligations for all countries. Caribbean countries continue to experience significant difficulties in implementing the SPS Agreement, which requires far reaching structural modification of various public institutions, the development and implementation of administrative structures, the enactment of new legislation, upgrading technical competence at various levels and institutional reform. Information Backgrounder prepared for the Regional Breifing of National Consultation Facilitators

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Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT).

The objective is to ensure that technical regulations are not prepared, adopted or applied with a view to, or with the effect of creating unnecessary obstacles to trade. It sets out objectives for which governments may develop technical regulations, including, inter alia: national security; prevention of deceptive practices; protection of human health or safety, and animal and plant life or health; and the environment. Technical regulations (compulsory product standards, packaging & labeling requirements, etc); It establishes the basic principles for the preparation, adoption and application of technical regulations and the procedures for conformity assessment and circumscribes mandatory technical regulations that specify product characteristics or their related processes and production methods. Product standards (e.g. product characteristics, process & production methods, terminology & symbols). Both the SPS and TBT agreements contain rules of general application, which govern goods entering the customs territory of an importing country. But the SPS Agreement is focused more narrowly than the TBT Agreement and therefore contains certain objective standards of legitimacy for all SPS measures. As tariff barriers are reduced, the importance of standards and technical regulations has increased markedly. Small developing countries should devote carefully rationed attention to the evolving rules in the TBT and SPS WTO negotiations. While it is clear that lower tariffs mean freer trade, it is not at all clear how changes in particular standards or technical regulations, or the system as a whole, affect trade. Specifications

can be voluntary standards or mandatory technical regulations; they can be national or international; and most important, they can increase access by developing countries to the market or they can bar entry.

SCM seeks to balance potentially conflicting concerns, such that: Domestic industries should not be put at an unfair disadvantage by competition from goods that benefit from government subsidies; Countervailing measures to offset subsidies should not themselves be obstacles to fair trade.

Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM);

geographical indications (GIs), which refer to the use of a regions name by producers from the area in order to protect their reputation or to safeguard the expectations of consumers who have come to associate certain qualities with a products origin. Geographical indications, in particular, have become more important in the global agriculture and food industry because of the expansion in global trade. Although there are other related international agreements, the TRIPS Agreement is the first agreement to deal with GIs as such. Under TRIPS, the normal level of protection (afforded to all products) refers to Members obligation to provide the legal means for interested parties to prevent the use of indications deceiving consumers as to the geographical origin of a good or constituting an act of unfair competition.

Implementation of Article VI of GATT 1994 (AntiDumping) (ADP)

ADP seeks to balance potentially conflicting interests of: importing countries in imposing anti-dumping measures to prevent injury to domestic industries; and exporters, that anti-dumping measures and procedures should not themselves become obstacles to fair trade. The SCM and ADP both govern measures that governments of importing countries can take if requested by domestic industry in response to unfair trade practices.

Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)

The TRIPS Agreement seeks to ensure minimum standards for protection of intellectual property. In agriculture that would be relate to: trademarks, i.e., signs or symbols used to distinguish goods of one enterprise from another;

As globalization advances and trade becomes increasingly important, the world trading system has become locked into international trade law. Consequently, countries will be further pressured to remove the remaining impediments to greater international economic transactions. The current negotiations under the auspices of the Doha Development Agenda provide the forum in which WTO members will shape the next phase of trade agreements.