WTO’s TBT Agreement: technical barriers to trade

The WTO’s TBT Agreement entered into force with the establishment of the WTO on 1 January 1995. It aims to ensure that product requirements in regulations and standards (on safety, quality, health and the environment) as well as procedures for assessing product compliance with such requirements (certification, testing, inspection, accreditation) are not unjustifiably discriminatory and do not create unnecessary obstacles to trade.1 The TBT Agreement also emphasizes the importance of transparency and contains disciplines that strongly encourage the use of international standards as a basis for harmonizing regulations across WTO members.