The Role of WTO Committees through the Lens of Specific Trade Concerns Raised in the TBT Committee

The existing literature shows that transparency and monitoring reduce trade costs, improve regulatory practices and build and sustain trust. In this paper, using 555 specific trade concerns (STCs) raised by the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) committee in the period 1995–2018, we develop a novel classification of STCs. We distinguish between STCs aiming to exchange information (transparency STCs) and those aiming to monitor compliance with the TBT agreement (monitoring STCs). We show that: (i) when STCs intend to foster transparency, they are mainly used in relation to notified measures, thus suggesting that they are used to acquire not only new but also higher quality information than that provided merely by notifications; (ii) when STCs intend to challenge the compliance of WTO members with the TBT Agreement, they primarily address draft measures, thus suggesting that they are used to promote accountability and improve good regulatory practices; and (iii) STCs raised at the draft stage are less likely to escalate to a dispute than those raised on adopted measures. Guided by these findings, we suggest the potential for some reforms to improve the efficiency of the system. These include: introducing a reporting system on the outcome of STCs; using STCs raised in committees to fill the gap of missing notifications; systematically using the STC mechanism at the stage of draft measures; and building in the dispute settlement system the requirement to raise the matter and discuss it within the relevant committee before filing a formal dispute settlement case.