EPA Review Annex Documents - DFID

‘The Parties will apply the principle of zoning or compartmentalisation when
defining import conditions, taking into account international standards. Zones
or compartments of defined sanitary or phytosanitary status may also be
identified and proposed jointly by the Parties, on a case by case basis,
wherever possible, in order to avoid disruption to trade.’
This does not appear to go beyond the existing commitments of WTO Members, but rather
simply recognises the potential role that regionalisation might play in facilitating trade and
reiterates the commitments of the signatories. Note that there is no reference to
regionalisation in the final CARIFORUM agreement or the interim agreement between the
EU and the Pacific states; this concept is not relevant to small islands states.
The ability of most countries participating in the EPA negotiations to undertake pest risk
assessments (PRAs), to define and/or maintain pest- or disease-free areas and to
demonstrate the status of these area is extremely limited. For example, the Phytosanitary
Capacity Evaluation (PCE) tool of the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) in
more than 60 developing countries indicates widespread weaknesses in controls on plant
pests and diseases (Day et al, 2006). This suggests that most of the signatory countries will
struggle to take advantage of the regionalisation provision of the SPS Agreement, and of the
related provisions in the EPA agreements.
Transparency and information exchange
All of the final and interim agreements put great emphasis on transparency between the
parties in terms of current and proposed SPS measures. In a large part, the related
provisions simply restate and reaffirm the transparency obligations and procedures of the
SPS Agreement. Thus, Article 45 Part 2 of the interim agreement between the EC and
Central Africa states:
‘The parties reaffirm their obligations under the WTO SPS and TBT
Agreements to inform each other of changes to the relevant standards or
technical regulations through the mechanisms established by the agreement.’
The SPS Agreement requires that WTO Members establish a National Enquiry Point and
National Notification Authority for the purposes of providing notifications of proposed new
SPS measures and a channel through which further information about these proposed
measures can be solicited from other WTO Members. It is evident from
Table 9 that a number of parties to the EPA negotiations that are WTO Members have not
complied with this obligation. Further, as noted above, parties to the EPA negotiations that
are not currently WTO Members commit themselves to these obligations. Thus, the first
step for a number of ACP countries will be establishing the necessary WTO-compliant
transparency mechanisms.
A number of the final and interim agreements, however, appear to envisage more direct and
active channels of communications on SPS matters than those provided by the SPS
Agreement. Thus, Article 57 of the final agreement between the EC and CARIFORUM
states:
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