Comparing the SPS and TBT Agreements: What They Mean for International Trade

Every time a shipment of mangoes is turned away at a border, or a batch of imported dairy products fails to clear customs, there’s a good chance that one of two international agreements is at play: the Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Agreement or the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Agreement. Both are administered by the World Trade Organization (WTO) and both came into force on 1 January 1995 as part of the Uruguay Round outcomes. They share a common goal – keeping trade as open as possible while giving countries the right to protect their citizens – but they work in different domains and with different tools. Understanding how they compare is essential for anyone working in food production, export compliance, or agricultural policy.

The origin and purpose of both agreements 🔗

Before the WTO era, trade disputes over health and safety measures were handled under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The problem was that GATT’s rules were not specific enough to stop countries from using health regulations as a cover for protectionism. As tariffs fell through successive rounds of trade negotiations, non-tariff barriers – including unjustified food safety restrictions and technical standards – became a growing concern. Two separate agreements were negotiated to deal with this: the SPS Agreement for health-related measures, and the TBT Agreement for other technical requirements.

The WTO explains that the basic aim of the SPS Agreement is to maintain each government’s sovereign right to set its own health protection levels, while ensuring those rights are not misused for protectionist purposes. The TBT Agreement operates on a similar philosophy – it aims to ensure that technical regulations, standards, and conformity assessment procedures are non-discriminatory and do not create unnecessary obstacles to trade.

What the SPS Agreement covers 🔗

The SPS Agreement applies specifically to measures related to food safety, animal health, and plant protection. These are measures designed to protect human or animal life from foodborne risks, protect animals from diseases, protect plants from pests, or prevent the spread of those hazards across borders. In practical terms, this includes regulations on pesticide residues, maximum limits for contaminants, quarantine requirements for imported plants and animals, and inspection procedures for meat and dairy products.

The defining feature of the SPS Agreement is its insistence on scientific justification. According to the WTO’s SPS framework, measures to ensure food safety and protect the health of animals and plants must be based as far as possible on the analysis and assessment of objective and accurate scientific data. If a country wants to maintain a standard that is stricter than what international bodies recommend, it must provide scientific evidence to justify that higher level of protection.

The role of the “three sisters” 🔗

The SPS Agreement relies on three internationally recognised standard-setting bodies – commonly known as the “three sisters” – to provide the scientific benchmarks that members are encouraged to adopt:

• The FAO/WHO Codex Alimentarius Commission for food safety standards
• The World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) for animal health and zoonoses
• The International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) for plant protection measures

Countries that align their national measures with the standards of these bodies are presumed to be acting consistently with the SPS Agreement. If they deviate – even in the direction of stronger protection – they must be prepared to justify that deviation with scientific risk assessment data.

Risk assessment under the SPS Agreement 🔗

Risk assessment is central to the SPS Agreement. Article 5 of the agreement requires members to ensure that their SPS measures are based on an assessment of risks to human, animal, or plant health, using risk assessment techniques developed by relevant international organisations. The agreement also includes a precautionary element – Article 5.7 allows countries to take provisional measures when scientific evidence is insufficient, provided they seek additional information to complete the assessment within a reasonable timeframe.

A well-known example of how the SPS Agreement works in practice is the EU-US beef hormones dispute. The EU banned imports of hormone-treated beef on health grounds, but when challenged at the WTO, it was found that the EU had not provided a sufficient risk assessment to justify the ban. This case illustrates that good intentions alone are not enough – measures must be grounded in scientific evidence to withstand scrutiny under the SPS Agreement.

What the TBT Agreement covers 🔗

The TBT Agreement has a broader scope. According to the U.S. International Trade Administration, the TBT Agreement establishes rules for the development, adoption, and application of voluntary product standards, mandatory technical regulations, and conformity assessment procedures. It applies to all industrial and agricultural products – essentially anything that does not fall under the SPS Agreement.

In the food sector, TBT-covered measures include nutritional labelling, packaging specifications, quality grading, country-of-origin marking, and product definitions. For example, while the permissible level of a pesticide in imported fruit would be an SPS matter, the labelling format required on that fruit’s packaging would fall under the TBT Agreement. As FAO notes, regulations on treating imported fruit to prevent pest spread are SPS measures, whereas quality grading and labelling of that same fruit are TBT matters.

Technical regulations vs. standards 🔗

The TBT Agreement draws an important distinction between two types of measures. Technical regulations are mandatory rules imposed by governments – a product cannot enter the market unless it complies. Standards, by contrast, are voluntary guidelines approved by a recognised body. Despite being voluntary, producers often have no practical choice but to comply with standards for commercial reasons. A third category – conformity assessment procedures – covers the testing, inspection, and certification processes used to verify that a product meets either a regulation or a standard.

The TBT Agreement requires that all three types of measures be applied on a non-discriminatory basis and developed transparently. The EU’s Trade and Economic Security policy notes that technical barriers to trade can take the form of weight, size, packaging, ingredients, mandatory labelling, or shelf-life conditions – and if applied arbitrarily, these can become hidden restrictions on trade.

Risk assessment under the TBT Agreement 🔗

The TBT Agreement also uses risk assessment, but with more flexibility than the SPS Agreement. While the SPS Agreement requires measures to be grounded specifically in scientific evidence, the TBT Agreement allows a broader range of factors to be considered – including national security, environmental protection, and prevention of deceptive practices. Legal analysis in the Drake Journal of Agricultural Law notes that under the SPS Agreement a member must have scientific evidence to support the regulation, whereas the TBT Agreement permits more factors to be considered in risk assessment – making TBT’s standard somewhat less demanding in terms of scientific burden of proof.

Key similarities between the two agreements 🔗

Despite their differences in scope, the SPS and TBT Agreements share several foundational principles that reflect their common goal of keeping trade fair and open.

Harmonisation with international standards 🔗

Both agreements strongly encourage countries to base their national measures on international standards. For SPS, this means aligning with the three sisters (Codex, WOAH, IPPC). For TBT, relevant reference bodies include the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). The logic is the same in both cases: when countries use the same benchmarks, it reduces the compliance burden on exporters and makes it harder to disguise protectionism as a regulatory requirement.

Transparency obligations 🔗

Both agreements require WTO members to notify other members of new or changed measures before they come into force, giving other countries time to review and comment. Australia’s Department of Agriculture explains that under the SPS Agreement, members must establish official contact points – known as the National Notification Authority and the National Enquiry Point – to manage this process. The TBT Agreement operates an equivalent notification system. Both use the WTO’s ePing platform to distribute notifications to interested members.

Prevention of disguised protectionism 🔗

A core concern behind both agreements is that technical and health measures can be used as a smokescreen for trade protectionism. As the WTO notes, a health restriction that is not genuinely required for safety purposes can be a highly effective and particularly deceptive trade barrier. Both agreements aim to prevent this by requiring that measures be applied only to the extent necessary and that they do not arbitrarily discriminate between countries where similar conditions prevail.

Key differences between the two agreements 🔗

Scope and subject matter 🔗

As the Food Safety Institute explains, the SPS Agreement specifically covers food safety, animal health, and plant protection – whereas the TBT Agreement covers all other technical requirements including quality standards, labelling for consumer information, and packaging specifications. Importantly, it is the measure – not the product – that determines which agreement applies. A single food product can simultaneously be subject to both agreements for different aspects of its regulation.

Scientific basis and the precautionary principle 🔗

The SPS Agreement has a stricter scientific requirement. Every SPS measure must be grounded in scientific risk assessment, and if a country goes beyond international standards, it must be able to justify that departure with evidence. The TBT Agreement is more flexible, allowing regulatory purposes like environmental protection or consumer safety to justify measures even where the scientific evidence is less clear-cut.

Standard-setting bodies 🔗

The SPS Agreement explicitly names the three sisters as its reference standard-setting bodies. The TBT Agreement does not name specific bodies in the same way – instead it refers to standards developed by international standardising bodies more broadly. Farm Foundation’s trade analysis points out that this is one of the most visible differences between the two agreements: the SPS Agreement has a clearly defined hierarchy of international standards, while the TBT Agreement is more open-ended in its reference to international norms.

How the two agreements interact 🔗

The SPS and TBT Agreements are mutually exclusive in their application to any single measure – a regulation is covered by one or the other, not both at the same time. However, a single product can face measures from both agreements for different aspects. A food exporter shipping processed fruit to a new market might need to meet SPS requirements covering pesticide residue levels and phytosanitary treatment, while also complying with TBT requirements on labelling language, packaging dimensions, and nutritional disclosure format.

Both agreements are served by separate WTO committees – the SPS Committee and the TBT Committee – each of which meets three times a year and provides a forum for members to raise concerns about each other’s measures. FAO has identified transparency, harmonisation, and technical assistance as three areas common to both agreements where stronger implementation could significantly improve the flow of food trade.

Implications for developing countries and food exporters 🔗

Compliance with SPS and TBT requirements is often one of the most significant market access challenges facing agricultural exporters, particularly those from developing countries. Meeting the pesticide residue standards required by the EU, for example, demands laboratory capacity, traceability systems, and farmer-level training that not all countries can readily afford. The WTO’s Standards and Trade Development Facility (STDF) – a joint initiative of the WTO, WHO, World Bank, WOAH, and FAO – was established specifically to help developing countries build the capacity needed to meet these requirements.

For food businesses, the practical message from both agreements is consistent: aligning with internationally recognised standards – Codex for food safety, ISO for technical regulations – is the most reliable way to reduce market access friction and demonstrate compliance. When countries and exporters engage actively with the standard-setting process, they are better positioned to shape the rules and avoid being caught off guard by new requirements.

What do you think? When a country imposes stricter food safety standards than those recommended by Codex or the IPPC, should the burden of scientific proof rest entirely on that country – or should there be more room for the precautionary principle? And given that both agreements rely heavily on transparency and notification, do you think the current system gives smaller developing nations a fair opportunity to engage before new trade measures take effect?

References

1. https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/sps_e/sps_e.htm
2. https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/sps_e/spsund_e.htm
3. https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/tbt_e/tbt_e.htm
4. https://www.fao.org/fao-who-codexalimentarius/en/
5. https://www.woah.org/en/who-we-are/
6. https://www.ippc.int/en/
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agreement_on_the_Application_of_Sanitary_and_Phytosanitary_Measures
8. https://www.trade.gov/trade-guide-wto-tbt
9. https://www.fao.org/4/x2705e/x2705e.htm
10. https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/help-exporters-and-importers/accessing-markets/technical-barriers-trade_en
11. https://aglawjournal.wp.drake.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/66/2016/09/agVol08No3-Wilson.pdf
12. https://www.agriculture.gov.au/biosecurity-trade/market-access-trade/wto/sps
13. https://epingalert.org/en
14. https://foodsafety.institute/food-laws-standards/sps-tbt-agreements-food-standards/
15. https://www.farmfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/SPS-TBT-Agreement-Taveau-April-2019.pdf