Publications & Documents

The WTO plays an important role in supporting efforts to achieve international regulatory cooperation (IRC) and to facilitate trade. First, the WTO provides a multilateral framework for trade among its 164 members, with a view to ensuring that trade flows as smoothly, predictably and freely as possible. Second, the WTO’s Agreements provide important legal disciplines, helping to promote good regulatory practice and IRC at the domestic level as a means of reducing unnecessary barriers to trade. This publication highlights how the WTO’s Agreements on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) and on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) and the work of their related Committees promote opportunities for regulatory cooperation among governments and ease trade frictions. It demonstrates how members’ notification of draft measures, harmonisation of measures with international standards, discussion of specific trade concerns and other practices help to facilitate global trade in goods. The study also makes recommendations on how to benefit further from the transparency and cooperation opportunities provided by the TBT and SPS Agreements.

Behavioural insights (BI) are lessons derived from the behavioural and social sciences, including decision making, psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience, organisational and group behaviour. Public bodies around the world are increasingly using BI to design and implement better public policies based on evidence of the actual behaviour and biases of citizens and businesses. This toolkit provides practitioners and policy makers with a step-by-step process for analysing a policy problem, building strategies, and developing behaviourally informed interventions.