The World Trade Organisation (WTO) Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Agreement has a transparency obligation that requires WTO member countries to publish and notify the WTO, which in turn notifies its member countries, of any draft technical regulations at least 60 days in advance of adoption.
In South Africa the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) serves as the notification point – the South African TBT Enquiry Point – providing a weekly "Early Warning System for WTO/TBT Notifications" email, which contains the notifications on all proposed technical regulations for a specific week.
The notification urges recipients to read the notifications relating to their specific area of trade and to provide comment on the draft technical regulations five working days from the receipt of the alert.
The WTO notification contains the following information, (1) Notification Member; (2) Agency responsible; (3) Notified under Article; (4) Products covered (Harmonised System (HS) or Customs Commodity Code Number (CCCN)) where applicable, otherwise national tariff heading. International Classification for Standards (ICS) numbers may be provided in addition, where applicable; (5) Title, number of pages and language(s) of the notified document; (6) Description of content; (7) Objective and rationale, including the nature of urgent problems where applicable; (8) Relevant documents; (9) Proposed date of adoption and proposed date of entry into force; (10) Final date for comments; and (11) Text available from – National enquiry point.
Comments on the notifications of all draft technical regulations may be submitted to ronel.greyvenstein@sabs.co.za.