Distrust and Barriers to International Trade in Food Products: An Analysis of the US — Poultry Dispute

The US - Poultry dispute arbitrated by the WTO, opposing China to the US, was raised by the US decision to stop equivalence regime procedures for Chinese poultry. The Panel found that this decision was not compatible with the SPS Agreement's exigencies requiring a risk assessment centered on the Chinese poultry products, and contradicted MFN obligation of the GATT 1994 Agreement. The possibility that the reasoning of the Panel in this dispute was based on the reasoning developed in earlier SPS cases suggests that this dispute doesn't provide new perspectives for SPS cases. However, considering the dispute in the context of a trust game, this paper argues that the US - Poultry case is original. It provides an interpretation showing that a risk assessment focusing on the social and institutional conditions of the implementation of a country's safety regulation should be considered a proper way to defend impeding a national equivalence regime. This conclusion is reinforced by the economic analysis of MFN treatment in the dispute.