WTO SPS COMMITTEE: TRANSPARENCY WORKSHOP OCTOBER 2017
COMMUNICATION FROM THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
The following communication, received on 31 May 2017, is being circulated at the request of the
Delegation of the United States of America.
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1. The United States appreciates the work of the Secretariat in organizing a Transparency
Workshop to be held on the margins of the meeting of the SPS Committee on 2-3 November 2017.
We value the Committee’s work in strengthening Members’ implementation of the transparency
obligations in the SPS Agreement. The work of other organizations, such as the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development1, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation2, and the
World Bank3, has established that transparency in rulemaking can confer broad societal benefits
through more effective and efficient regulations.
2. Articles 5.3 and 5.4, as well as the second recital of the preamble, of the SPS Agreement place
a premium on measures that improve human, animal and plant health while minimizing
unnecessary economic costs associated with implementation. In our view, the information
accessed through public consultations can play a key role in the ability of the regulatory authority
to minimize such unnecessary costs. In particular, regulators’ consideration of and response to
comments prior to finalizing an SPS measure, as provided for in paragraph 5(d) of Annex B of the
SPS Agreement, is critical to minimizing the negative impact on trade.