| dc.description.abstract | Sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures are measures aimed at the protection of
human, animal and plant life and health, within World Trade Organization (WTO)
Member territories, from the risks associated with the introduction and spread of pests
and diseases into such territories through trade. The WTO, through its Agreement on
the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (WTO-SPS), guides the
application of sanitary and phytosanitary measures and provides a set of guiding
principles, rights and obligations applicable to Member States.
Dispute resolution through the processes of the WTO is available to Members on a
Member to Member level within a defined scope and on specific terms. Private parties
who operate within the SPS chain at a national level, whether involved in import or
export or neither, are dependent on solutions to barriers or disputes available to them
through national legislation. In the absence of an enabling legal framework to facilitate
aspects of trade such as certainty and continuity in standard setting, the basis of
measures taken in science, transparency and legal recourse to resolving barriers or
disputes arising, private parties are vulnerable to fluctuations in, for example, their
country’s disease-free status. Private parties are also vulnerable to losing relevance as
trading partners in periods of ongoing SPS events and to the loss of trust that trading
partners have in the country’s ability to trade safely. These are matters that affect
private parties who do not have legal recourse to the WTO dispute resolution
procedures which are well within WTO concern as they are directly related to the
purpose of SPS measures, the principles, rights and obligations on which they are
based.
Given the importance of agriculture and the increasing inseparability of international
rights, obligations and principles in a field of WTO law such as SPS, the importance of
a national legislative framework in as far as being the translator of such rights,
obligations and principles into legally enforceable rights, obligations, principles,
processes and procedures is significant. The rights, obligations, and principles of SPS
measures apply to all products, processes and procedures that are within the scope of
the agreement and may include at least 36 chapters of the harmonised tariff book. It
is necessary to consider also that international trade, national trade and the associated
rights, obligations, and principles of the WTO-SPS agreement interact with the social,
political, and economic realities of the country within the countries to which the
agreement applies. Therefore, researching some of the persistent challenges
experienced by the red meat industry in South Africa prone to negative trade-related
consequences during and after the outbreak of a notifiable disease, provides insight
into the perception of the ability of the legislative framework to provide solutions to
these consequences.
This research applies a mixed methodology approach whereby qualitative research by
means of semi-structured interviews was combined with doctrinal legal research and
a quantitative content analysis using Rprogramming. The qualitative research focused
on the role of legislation and the perspectives of selected actors in the red-meat
industry, specifically in reference to the foot-and-mouth-disease (FMD) outbreaks and
subsequent loss of disease-free status since 2019. The doctrinal legal analysis and
content analysis focused on the SPS-related legislative framework. The combination of
these methods provides a multi-perspective analysis of SPS measures as barriers to
trade from a South African perspective and contributes to the mixed-methods turn in
legal studies. The objective of this research is to identify and explore persistent
challenges to the prevention and resolution of barriers or disputes connected to
sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures in the South African context. Ultimately,
this research recommends potential practical solutions to the identified challenges with
specific focus on SPS-related barriers or disputes that are beyond the strict terms of
dispute resolution available through the World Trade Organization (WTO). | en_US |
