Standards and the Regional Integration Process In the Western Hemisphere Sherry M. Stephenson* 1 ©Copyright 1998 Organization of American States Organization of American States Trade Section, February 1998 Table of Contents Introduction An Overview of the FTAA Process Importance of Standards in Economic Development and Trade Standards in Promoting Economic Development Standards and Conformity Assessment as Non-Tariff Barriers A Common Base for Standards in the Western Hemisphere? Disciplines of the WTO TBT Agreement International Guidelines under the ISO/IEC Regional Standardizing Activity under COPANT, SIM and IAAC How Realistic is the Common Hemispheric Base? Sub-Regional Arrangements on Standards within the Hemisphere NAFTA Andean Community Group of Three Central American Common Market and CARICOM Bilateral Free Trade Agreements Commonalities and Divergences in the Sub-regional Approaches to Standards and Conformity Assessment Future FTAA Negotiations Tables Bibliography 1  The views presented here are the authors’ own and should not be attributed to the Organization of  American States, its General Secretariat, or any of its member countries. * Sherry M. Stephenson is Principal Trade Specialist with the Trade Section of the Organization of American States (OAS), where she is responsible for assisting the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) Working Groups on Standards and Technical Barriers to Trade, and Services. The views expressed in this study should not be attributed to the OAS nor to any of the participants in the FTAA Working Groups.

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