SPS Agreement Principles

Basic Rights

The SPS Agreement recognizes the fundamental right of countries to protect the health and life of their consumers, animals, and plants against pests, diseases, and other threats to health. However, the basic right to protect against harmful pests and disease is tempered by several rules aimed at preventing the use of health measures in an unjustified, arbitrary, or discriminatory fashion.

The primary obligation is that SPS protection measures must be based on either a relevant international standard--established by an international standards body recognized by the SPS Agreement--or a scientific risk assessment. For plant quarantine authorities, this means being able to demonstrate the threat of a particular pest or disease of concern that makes a particular phytosanitary regulation (i.e., import requirements or border controls) necessary.