Pest Risk Analysis - technical justification of quarantine application to the exchange of coconut germplasm material

摘要

With the adoption of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) Uruguay Round of negotiations in 1993 a fundamental change occurred in the discipline of plant quarantine and its administration. The prime purpose of the GATT negotiations was the reduction of tariff barriers. In recognition that technical barriers to trade may be erected where others had been removed, the GATT included an agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary matters (The SPS Agreement) (GATT 1994). The drawing up of importrestrictions in the context of liberalization of trade has led to quarantine considerations becoming of major significance. Many National Plant Protection Organisations (NPPOs) still have not recognized this. NPPOs must be able to show alignment with international standards, i.e. they need to have documented national standards (Hedley 1996). Essentially the SPS agreement recognized that technically formulated restrictions on the movement of commodities were justified, but that the systems should operatewithin a set of standards. A country which formulated import restrictions according to these standards would not be challenged under the GATT (now the World Trade Organisation, WTO).