WTO’s SPS Agreement: sanitary and phytosanitary measures

The WTO SPS Agreement sets out the basic rules for food safety and animal and plant health standards. It aims to strike a balance between WTO members’ rights to protect human, animal or plant life or health, and their obligation not to restrict trade more than necessary. Given the technical and costly nature of some of these measures, certain sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) requirements imposed by importing members could be difficult to meet for LLDCs, for whom agricultural products might represent an important part of their exports.