WTO agreements and quality concerns in Indian Fisheries

WTO agreements are legal ground rules of international commerce. As several facets of WTO agreements are discussed in this short course this paper will be a snapshot of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement popularly known as SPSA which is a non-tariff barrier in international trade. The Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary measures sets out the basic rules for food safety and animal and plant health standards. Safe and hygienic food is preferred anywhere in the world. More so in the northern world where advances in science have increased the level of awareness regarding the health ailments caused due to consumption of unsafe food. This has lead to development of food safety standards in these countries. Not only do these countries adopt these standards but also expect other countries to follow them giving rise to a plethora of issues. The general nature of such food standards can be said to be (1) a growing use of risk analysis (2) treatment of public health as a primary goal of food safety regulations (3) emphasis on a farm-to-fork approach in addressing food safety hazards (3) adoption of HACCP for microbial quality control (4) emergence of newer and extensive regulations to handle newly identified hazards.