SPS Agreement Principles

Setting the Appropriate Level of Protection

The SPS Agreement recognizes and maintains the right of countries to determine and set an "appropriate level of protection" for all pest or disease threats. While the SPS Agreement maintains countries right to determine what is an appropriate level of protection for them, the SPS Agreement contains several disciplines to prevent countries from setting their levels of protection in an arbitrary or discriminatory fashion.

"the level of protection deemed appropriate by the member establishing a sanitary or phytosanitary measure to protect human, animal, or plant life or health"

"many members otherwise refer to this concept as the acceptable level of risk"

"avoid arbitrary or unjustifiable distinctions in the levels of protection it considers to be appropriate in different situations, if such distinctions result in discrimination or a disguised restriction on international trade"

The objective is to prevent arbitrary behavior when it comes to setting the ALP in different, but comparable, risk situations. Different levels of protection may exist for different commodities for justifiable reasons. However, countries should be prepared to provide a science-based rationale for such differences.

Also, under the SPS Agreement, countries must ensure that their SPS measures are not more trade restrictive than necessary to achieve its appropriate level of protection.

"A measure is considered more trade-restrictive than required when there is another reasonable measure available that provides the appropriate level of protection sought by the importing country and which is significantly less restrictive to trade."

Countries are required to provide information regarding their risk assessment procedures (including the factors that were taken into consideration) as well as information on how and why it selected a particular level of protection. The emphasis on making regulatory decisions and actions transparent is intended to curb the ability of countries to set arbitrary and non-science based SPS measures.

To further the goal of consistency in risk management decision making, the WTO SPS Committee-- a Committee consisting of representatives from all WTO member countries--is mandated to develop guidelines to promote consistency in the levels of protection applied for similar, identical, or comparable risks. This effort is now underway in the SPS Committee.