Balancing Barriers to Trade and Technical Standards: Potential Impact on ICT Industries

This paper investigates the connection between technical standards, ICT industries, and international trade law to demonstrate how standards can be used as potential barriers to trade. There has been less attention paid to the role of standards as a form of protectionism, despite the introduction of Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (‘TBT Agreement’) on 15 April 1994. Stated as an objective, the TBT Agreement is to ensure that no unnecessary obstacles to international trade are created. While governments in the past have relied upon high tariffs and quotas imposed on imports to protect local industries or discriminate against foreign-produced goods, less transparent measures – referred to as non-tariff barriers – are now becoming more prominent. On one hand, it signals the growing significance of proprietary technologies in standards, demonstrating that public policy must embrace these concerns, but on the other hand, the continued tensions between two significant trading partners – China and the United States – demonstrates the complexity of international trade law in this area.