Professor Scott's The WTO Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures: A Commentary is a gem: a well thematized guide that belongs on the shelves of all those with an academic or practical interest in the workings of the Agreement. Presented in a clear and scholarly style, this text hits its mark as one of the series of Oxford Commentaries on the GATT/WTO Agreements. The purpose of a commentary on such a unique agreement must surely be to serve both as a handbook that introduces the fundamentals and as an informed and insightful reference tool for exploring the agreement's deeper ramifications. This combined purpose is achieved with a light touch that addresses the issues comprehensively and glosses them with well-informed insights and advice.

As the author explains, the SPS Agreement's practical import is wide-ranging. The Agreement regulates trade in many areas where populist opinion and public sentiment run high. Controversy over the use of growth promotion hormones in North American beef production provided the backdrop for the negotiation of the Agreement, adopted in Marrakesh in 1995 as part of the package of accords reached at the end of the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations. More recently, grave misgivings about the use of genetically modified organisms in agricultural production have involved European bans on American products. Scott invokes also such lesser-known threats as ‘mad honey disease’, attributed to toxins found in the flowers of rhododendrons and azaleas and contained in honey mainly from Turkey.

The SPS Agreement's most special characteristic is arguably the way in which the Agreement bridges regulation in three arenas: economic, environmental, and health policy. The volume of disputes decided under the SPS Agreement exceeds that of disputes arising under the relevant subparagraphs of Article XX of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (the GATT), previously the main provision under which this interface was regulated. The Appellate Body has played an important role in keeping the SPS Agreement's interpretation on track, combining mastery of legal technique with a far-sighted appreciation of the complex issues involved in reconciling trade policies with environmental and health protection. A sophisticated jurisprudence interpreting the Agreement and the inter-relationships between its provisions has evolved gradually through the decisions of WTO panels and the Appellate Body. One of the book's strengths is to explain this highly technical jurisprudence while appreciating its significance.

The book has eight chapters, preceded by a brief introduction highlighting the scientific turn taken with the Agreement's emphatic requirements for sanitary and phytosanitary measures to be based on scientific evidence and scientific principles. Chapter 1 introduces the SPS Agreement. Issues treated include the question of what will constitute an SPS measure, the SPS Agreement's relationship with the GATT and with the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (the TBT Agreement), and the central importance in the SPS Agreement of WTO Members' autonomy in setting their own levels of protection against risks as they consider appropriate. In dealing with the concept of an SPS measure, the text incorporates an advanced critique of the 2006 panel decision on genetically modified products in EC – Measures Affecting the Approval and Marketing of Biotech Products. Drawing on the work of Christine Conrad and Jacqueline Peel, Professor Scott notes that the panel's expansive interpretation of the concept of an SPS measure is likely to be ‘of the utmost significance’ for the future, involving ‘SPS imperialism of a kind which is by no means neutral from the point of view of regulating Member States’ (p. 17).

Chapter 2 of the book deals with the working of the WTO Committee on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, one of the WTO bodies meeting regularly in Geneva comprising representatives of all WTO Members. Focusing on the SPS Committee at an early stage in the book is an important signal to the readership that multilateral trade policy in this area is not all about the legal determination of those situations that harden into disputes requiring adjudication. Scott describes the Committee as sitting among the non-judicial accountability mechanisms of the WTO, as part of its ‘largely invisible infrastructure … in the form of its tentacular committee system’ (p. 45). The SPS Committee provides Members with a forum that is participatory and cooperative, in which proposed regulatory measures can be discussed, with reference to the Agreement's provisions, and adjusted to reflect others' trade concerns. There is a distinct normative dimension to this work, which Professor Scott views as an example of ‘network governance’ as described by Professor Anne-Marie Slaughter (p. 46).

Chapter 3 deals with the way in which the SPS Agreement rotates around the axis of science. All SPS measures require a scientific basis. The chapter looks closely at the provisions of the Agreement that incorporate this central scientific discipline, particularly Articles 2.2 and 5.1 as well as Article 5.7. A note on the precautionary principle is incorporated, drawing attention to resemblances and connections between EU and WTO law that often go unperceived. Chapter 4 examines the non-discrimination discipline of the SPS Agreement, found in Articles 2.3 and 5.5, together with other requirements including the ‘least trade-restrictive means’ test in Article 5.6. Chapters 5 and 6 respectively address the Agreement's transparency obligations, such as notification and publication, and the rules contained in the Agreement on control, inspection, and approval procedures. In Chapter 6, Professor Scott begins with a discussion about proceduralization, a key element in many modern theories of regulation. An illustration is provided in the form of the European framework for the labelling and traceability of GMOS, expected to form a subject of increasing tension in the WTO.

Chapter 7 deals with the important topic of international standards. This chapter introduces the three standard-setting ‘sister organizations’: the Codex Alimentarius Commission (Codex) the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC). Primary focus is placed on the most prominent of the three, the Codex, a body formed by the FAO and the WHO in 1962 to set international standards in food safety. As part of the drive to ensure a scientific basis for SPS measures, the Agreement places a strong emphasis on Members' voluntary conformity with the standards set by all three bodies. Inter alia, this chapter addresses developing countries' participation in international standard-setting. The importance of such standards to developing countries is set against the financial and technical constraints inhibiting their participation in standard-setting activity. Establishment of strategic trust funds is an important step forward in this area. However, it is clear that much more needs to be done institutionally, including through potential initiatives canvassed in the chapter.

Chapter 8, the book's final chapter, is devoted more broadly to the ‘pervasive’ development dimension of the SPS Agreement. As Professor Scott points out, this dimension is present in all the many spheres of activity generated by the SPS regime, including in the activity of the SPS Committee, and the question of Members' regulatory autonomy, as well as in connection with harmonization and standard-setting. The SPS Agreement may be construed as a friend to the developing world (p. 282) because of the protection provided to market-access for agricultural products. However, the technical demands of the Agreement are very high, and assistance is limited. Professor Scott examines World Bank analysis of the challenges and opportunities created for developing countries, with reference to empirical examples as well as to the more theoretical critique put forward by Professor Anne Orford (p. 283). The broader picture is also elaborated, including in the context of the 2001 Doha Declaration and the work done since by the Committee on Trade and Development, as well as the salutary report of the SPS Committee itself in 2005. Additionally, the chapter assesses the state of the technical assistance available to developing countries in a variety of diverse forms. Private standard setting is also discussed, as raised in the SPS Committee for the first time in 2005 by St Vincent and the Grenadines. Members are required under Article 13 of the Agreement to take reasonable available measures to ensure observation of the Agreement by non-governmental entities within their territories. As Scott observes, there is a pressing need for clarification about the benchmarks in this provision. Finally, Professor Scott emphasizes the importance of enhancing developing country capacity to resolve specific trade concerns through the SPS Committee.

Professor Scott's book is thoroughly to be recommended. The themes of the work are pragmatically and sensitively selected, and the text readable and helpful. A good balance is maintained between explanation and deeper investigation of significant points. A copy of the SPS Agreement is annexed to the text, with a brief table of cases at the front of the book. Readers of Professor Scott's commentary on the SPS Agreement may await with interest the fruits of her next major research project, with Dr Andrew Lang, The Hidden World of WTO Governance: Law and Constitutionalism in the WTO.