Project: Establishment of an
agricultural standards certification and control mechanism in line
with WTO-SPS requirements
Project No. EuropeAid/114025/C/SV/UA
The legislation in the fields of
sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures consists of the norms of
international law and national legislation regulations.
The main international
legislative document in this field is the Agreement on usage of
sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures, 1994, developed in accordance
with the general principles and regulations of the World Trade
Organization.
The necessity to develop and
adopt the abovementioned agreement was caused by the need to
coordinate two concepts: on one hand is the market economy that
envisages free market, removal of barriers in flow of goods,
non-admission of restrictions of the owner in dealing with his
products, removal of administrative barriers, etc. and on the other
hand is the necessity to guarantee protection of health and life of
people, animals and plants which can be accomplished only by means
of strengthening the measures of administrative influence.
Adoption of the abovementioned
Agreement has become a powerful stimulus for development of the
legislation in this field in many countries with developed market
economy. The Agreement contains regulations that are general in
meaning and demand implementation at the level of national
legislation. Special attention is paid to this issue by the
European Union legislation and accordingly by the countries members
of the EU. The EU is also a member of WTO and in its policy,
lawmaking in particular, it declares and follows the basic
principles of market economy and free market.
At present Ukraine is not a
member of WTO and EU, though it has more than once expressed
attempt to join these international organizations and has
undertaken obligations to harmonize its legislation with the EU and
WTO requirements. Such obligations emerge from several
international agreements and the necessity of corresponding steps
comes from the requirements of the national legislation. Expansion
of the EU and the need to establish economic relations has set a
task for Ukraine to evaluate how well our legislation in this field
corresponds to the requirements accepted in the world and European
community.
Ukraine has a number of
normative acts concerning this field. Our legislation on sanitary
and phyto-sanitary measures as well as the legislation of most
countries consists of a number of interconnected laws and
subordinate legislation that altogether are aimed at protection of
health of people, animals and plants. Conditionally we can divide
these normative acts into: 1) veterinary legislation; 2)
legislation on sanitary and epidemiological health of citizens; 3)
plant quarantine legislation; 4) food safety legislation.
Improvement of the Ukrainian
legislation in the field of sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures
and its approaching the EU legislation and WTO requirements should
become a stimulus for development of international trade,
integration of Ukraine into the world economy.
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