Author Description

This new edition provides an overview of the purpose and scope of the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), the types of measures it covers, and the key principles of the Agreement. It aims at enhancing understanding of the TBT Agreement. The TBT Agreement aims to ensure that product requirements in regulations and standards--on safety, quality, health, etc.--and procedures for assessing product compliance with such requirements (testing, inspection, accreditation, etc.) are not unjustifiably discriminatory and do not create unnecessary obstacles to trade. This handbook sets out the key principles of the TBT Agreement and discusses how these have been addressed in recent disputes brought under this Agreement. The publication looks into requirements on transparency, a cornerstone of the TBT Agreement, and describes the mandate, role and work of the TBT Committee. The publication contains the full text of the TBT Agreement, a compilation of decisions and recommendations by the TBT Committee over the past 25 years and a list of observers in the TBT Committee. This 3rd edition supersedes the previous versions