The Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement) was established by the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995 to ensure the protection of human, animal, and plant health while facilitating international trade. The SPS Agreement sets out the rules and principles that WTO member countries should follow in order to harmonize their sanitary and phytosanitary measures.

The primary objective of the SPS Agreement is to balance the need for protecting human, animal, and plant health with the need to facilitate trade. It aims to achieve this balance by establishing a set of guidelines and principles that member countries should follow in implementing SPS measures. These guidelines cover areas such as risk assessment, scientific evidence, and transparency.

One of the main objectives of the SPS Agreement is to ensure that SPS measures are based on scientific evidence. This means that member countries must conduct risk assessments to determine the potential health risks associated with a product, and then implement appropriate measures to manage those risks. The SPS Agreement also requires that any SPS measure must be transparent, meaning that it must be clearly communicated and accessible to all interested parties.

Another objective of the SPS Agreement is to prevent the unjustified use of SPS measures as barriers to international trade. WTO member countries are required to use SPS measures only when necessary to protect human, animal, or plant health, and to avoid using them as disguised protectionism. This means that member countries must provide scientific evidence to support their SPS measures and ensure that they do not discriminate against foreign products.

Additionally, the SPS Agreement encourages member countries to use international standards and guidelines when developing their SPS measures. This helps to promote harmonization and consistency in the implementation of SPS measures across different countries, reducing the potential for trade disruption and increasing predictability for businesses.

In summary, the objective of the SPS Agreement is to strike a balance between protecting human, animal, and plant health and facilitating international trade. It provides a set of guidelines and principles that WTO member countries should follow to ensure that SPS measures are based on scientific evidence, transparent, non-discriminatory, and consistent with international standards. By achieving these objectives, the SPS Agreement helps to promote a fair and predictable trading system that benefits both consumers and businesses around the world.