What is the TBT Agreement? What are its basic principles?

TBT, also known as Technical Barriers to Trade, is a major form of non-tariff barriers. It refers to unnecessary obstacles that may be created for international trade due to the improper formulation or implementation of technical regulations, standards, conformity assessment procedures, and labeling or marking systems by countries or regions.

The WTO/TBT Agreement is the abbreviation for the World Trade Organization Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade. The WTO/TBT Agreement sets rules for WTO members in formulating, adopting, and implementing technical regulations, standards, and conformity assessment procedures in international trade, aiming to regulate members' trade behavior and obligations in technical barriers to reduce and eliminate technical barriers in trade, achieving liberalization and facilitation of international trade.

The fundamental principles of the TBT Agreement are: the principle of adopting international standards, i.e., adopting international standards such as those from ISO and IEC; the principle of avoiding unnecessary (excessively high or strict) obstacles to trade, where standards set by some countries are higher and stricter than international standards without authoritative scientific basis, creating unnecessary obstacles to trade; the principle of transparency, where member states are obliged to notify other WTO members of their relevant technical regulations, standards, or conformity assessment procedures, and promptly notify changes, providing a 60-day comment period and a transition period of no less than 6 months; the principle of harmonization, suggesting equivalent adoption if other countries have technical regulations of the same nature; and the principle of non-discrimination, encompassing most-favored-nation treatment and national treatment.