WTO Agreements Series

The Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement aims to ensure that regulations, standards, testing and certification procedures followed by WTO members do not create unnecessary obstacles to trade. The WTO Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade conducts an annual review of the implementation of the TBT Agreement. The information in this brochure is based on the 2020 review.

This new edition provides an introduction to the WTO’s Agreement on Agriculture, outlining its key principles, the work of the Agriculture Committee, and how disputes have interpreted WTO law on agriculture. The publication includes the full text of the Agriculture Agreement as well as the decisions taken on agriculture at the 2013 Bali Ministerial Conference. A frequently asked questions section provides a handy overview of the Agriculture Agreement and the issues covered by it. The publication also provides an update on agriculture negotiations at the WTO. This publication forms part of the WTO Agreements Series, a set of compact booklets on selected WTO agreements. Other publications in the series include Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures and Technical Barriers to Trade.

The WTO Secretariat has prepared this booklet to assist public understanding of the SPS Agreement, it concerns the application of food safety and animal and plant health regulations. The first section of the booklet presents the basic structure of WTO agreements; the second looks at the key features of the SPS Agreement; the third addresses a number of frequently-asked questions; and the fourth is the legal text of the agreement.