ABSTRACT
The capacity of national technical regulations and standards to create problems for international trade is well understood. This chapter looks at the opportunities that exist within the WTO system for dealing with these problems, using the extensive experience gained by the EC as an aid to seeing what has been and what might be achieved. Limitations of time and space have restricted this consideration to technical regulations (roughly speaking, those measures that are promulgated with the authority of the state, and are in many cases enforced by sanctions). The focus is on regulations that relate to products.
