Role of Codex in the context of private standards

Having set out the ways in which private standards have evolved and the roles these perform in the governance of food safety, we now turn to the functions of Codex in general and specifically in the context of private standards. It is only through an understanding of the work that Codex does that we can begin to assess whether private standards do indeed undermine established international standards, as some fear.

While the work of Codex is generally described in terms of standards-setting, it is more useful to think about its activities as defining a set of rules within which national governments establish their own regulatory requirements.²²⁷ It is possible to discern three distinct types of rule in this regard (Table 5.4). Thus, Codex standards, guidelines and recommendations both provide guidance to governments and also act as the reference point for compliance with obligations under the WTO. ISO standards play a similar and often complementary role. At the same time, Codex principles provide guidance, and set rules, for the development and implementation of private standards. Indeed, many private food safety standards make explicit reference to Codex Standards, guidelines and recommendations (for example SQF 2000).

The first group in Table 5.4 refers to rules about products. For example, Codex has established a rule on veterinary drugs in meat that provides recommendations on maximum residue levels for veterinary drugs.²²⁸ This product standard can

227 Humphrey, J., 2008. Private standards, small farmers and donor policy: EUREPGAP in Kenya, IDS Working Paper 308, Institute of Development Studies, Brighton, UK.

228 CAC, 2006. Maximum residue limits for veterinary drugs in foods: updated as at the 29^th session of the Codex Alimentarius Commission. Codex Alimentarius Commission, Rome, Italy.

Codex Alimentarius and private standards

also be thought of as an outcome standard; the outputs of a food safety system should result in a residue of this particular veterinary drug being no greater than the recommended limit. Note also that Codex defines rules (or recommendations) about methods of analysis and sampling for veterinary drugs in food. In other words, as well as defining rules about product characteristics, it also suggests ways in which these rules should be implemented through testing procedures. These rules have no direct legal force. They are recommendations aimed primarily at governments to guide their own rule-making. The legal implications of these recommendations lie in the SPS Agreement, which leaves regulations not based on these recommendations open to challenge within the WTO if they cannot be demonstrated to be justified by science-based risk assessment.

Within this first group of rules, Codex also has set product standards that are more concerned with establishing common reference points.²²⁹ The issue here is not whether one reference point is better than another, but that everyone uses the same reference point in order to facilitate transactions, interfaces between products, etc. These can include definitions of products and terminology, for example.

229 David, P.A., 1995. standardization policies for network technologies: the flux between freedom and order revisited. In: Hawkins, R., Mansell, R. and Skea, J. (eds.), Standards, innovation, and competitiveness: the politics and economics of standards in national and technical environments.

Edward Elgar, Aldershot, UK, pp. 15-35.

Table 5.4. Three types of rules promulgated by Codex Alimentarius.¹ Codex standards

• Referring to specific commodities – standards for specific products

• Referring to ranges of commodities – standards for ranges of products

• Methods of sampling and analysis

Codex codes of practice for production, processing, manufacturing, transport and storage

• For individual foods

• For groups of foods

• General principles for all products, such as the Codex General Principles of Food Hygiene Codex guidelines

• Principles that set out policy in key areas

• Guidelines for the interpretation of these principles or for the interpretation of other Codex standards

• Interpretative Codex guidelines for labelling and claims about food

• Guidelines for interpreting Codex principles for food import and export inspection and certification, etc.

1 CAC, 1997. Understanding the Codex Alimentarius. Codex Alimentarius Commission, Rome, Italy.

The second group in Table 5.4 refers to Codex codes of practice for production, processing, manufacturing, transport and storage. These are the meta-standards that are incorporated into specific standards that relate to processes; the means by which products are produced, handled and processed along the value chain. Process controls have three main objectives. First, they provide a means of controlling quality and safety in a way that is more efficacious and cost-efficient than testing.²³⁰ Second, process standards are a means of controlling for food safety hazards that are either impossible or very difficult to detect, such that the most effective approach is to implement food safety and hygiene controls at source to reduce the risk of contamination. Third, they facilitate the monitoring and control of characteristics that are extrinsic to the product; which have no physical presence in the product and so are not revealed by inspection.

The Codex codes of practice for production, processing, manufacturing, transport and storage referred to in Table 5.4 are frequently expressed in guidelines that have been drawn from best practice on food safety, codified by Codex and incorporated into numerous specific standards. These meta-standards include Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) and Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP), which are then adopted by both private standards setters and governments.²³¹ For example, the Recommended International Code of Practice – General Principles of Food Hygiene has evidently formed the basis of many private food safety standards for food processing²³², including the BRC Global Standard for Food Safety, IFS and SQF 2000, and also the GFSI Guidance Document for the benchmarking of such standards. Likewise, ISO 22000 substantively defines a HACCP-based food safety management system in accordance with Codex guidelines.²³³

The third group of Codex guidelines listed in Table4.4 are more general, setting out principles and providing guidelines for interpreting principles. In effect, these are rules that specify the ways in which food safety rules are formulated and implemented; for example, inspection and controls on imports and/or exports.

They are addressed to governments, but many private food safety standards are constructed around these same principles. There are at least three reasons for this.

First, these guidelines represent best practice, and private firms often participate in

230 Unnevehr, L., 2000. Food safety issues and fresh food product exports from LDCs. Agricultural Economics 23(3): 231-240.

231 Busch, L., Thiagarajan, D., Hatanaka, M., Bain, C., Flores, L. and Frahm, M., 2005. The relationship of third-party certification (TPC) to sanitary/phytosanitary (SPS) measures and the international agri-food trade: Final Report, RAISE SPS Global Analytical Report 9, USAID, Washington, DC, USA; Henson, S.J., 2007. The role of public and private standards in regulating international food markets. Journal of International Agricultural Trade and Development 4(1): 52-66.

232 WTO, 2007. Private Standards and the SPS Agreement, note by the Secretariat, G/SPS/GEN/746.

WTO, Committee on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, Geneva, Switzerland.

233 WTO, 2007. Submission by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) to the SPS Committee Meeting 28 February, 1 March 2007, G/SPS/GEN/750, WTO, Committee on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, Geneva, Switzerland.

Codex Alimentarius and private standards

their formulation through their membership of bodies such as the ISO or through their participation in national Codex committees and/or International NGOs recognised by Codex that participate in Commission meetings. Second, private voluntary standards for food safety are often responses to government regulations and are aimed at the same outcome. Third, by building on the framework of regulations rather than ‘reinventing the wheel’, the cost of formulating and enforcing private standards is reduced. Thus, private standards can use the facilities provided by public regulatory and standards infrastructures, for example recognition of laboratories or rules regulating certification bodies.