Private Standards of Non-Governmental Organizations in the Field of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures Application

Abstract

The relevance of the article is as follows: on the one hand, the importance of sanitary and phytosanitary measures as an integrating category, a category that stands at the crossroads of agrarian, environmental, social and international policies is not yet fully realised and therefore significantly underestimated; on the other hand, at the present stage, it is impossible to ignore the objective growth of the role and importance of non-governmental organisations in regulating the relations in the field of sanitary and phytosanitary measures.

The purpose of the article is to identify and highlight the range of issues related to the relations between the State and non-governmental organisations which approve their own standards in the field of sanitary and phytosanitary measures, between the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the same non-governmental organisations, and also between the WTO and the State under whose jurisdiction a non-governmental organisation approves its own standards in the field of sanitary and phytosanitary measures. The leading methods of scientific cognition were: the dialectical method, which served as the methodological basis for scientific cognition, reflecting the relationship between theory and practice, as well as the conceptual provisions of legal science; formal logical method was used to analyse the content of current national and European legislation on the legal regulation of the application of private standards in the field of sanitary and phytosanitary measures;  the comparative legal method was used to analyse and study the EU requirements, in particular the provisions of the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures and practical mechanisms that can be implemented in national legislation and put into practice; the conclusions and proposals contained in the article are formulated using the method of dogmatic (logical) analysis. The article covers a range of issues related to the relations between the State and non-governmental organisations that approve their own standards in the field of sanitary and phytosanitary measures and notes that internal corporate standards and policies play a significant role in the activities of most international companies, which ensure that company employees comply with the requirements of both international and national legislation.

The study revealed the following results: 1) the issue of risks of private standards has been updated, namely, they are not always based on scientific data, as required by the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures; differ from international standards; such standards are stricter than official sanitary and phytosanitary requirements; require additional costs for small suppliers; private standards are set without transparency, consultation and appeal systems; private standards are diverse and not harmonised; the rule of

Further research on the purpose of increasing the influence of private standards in international trade; development and justification of the procedure for introducing standards; determination of the role of the state and its responsibility; analysis of the prospects for the introduction of stricter requirements by non-governmental organisations; development of methodological foundations for the extension of certain international legal obligations to private individuals are considered promising.