Chapter 12. International trade, standards and regulations Learning objective

12. What is the main purpose of technical regulations and what are the main 
requirements for them? 
 
Product satisfying the consumer, in any case, should be safe for his health and does not
harm the environment. Therefore the technical characteristics of the product and its price, as a 
rule, are the criteria based on which the customer decides to buy, and the corresponding 
security is considered by a consumer for granted. However in the real competitive world for 
products the more important criterion often is the cost of production, so that they tend to 
reduce it to get a bigger share of the profits in the market, even at the expense of the safety of 
products or a potential harm to the environment. 
Individual consumer rarely has the means to identify the aspects of product safety at 
time of purchasing and is obliges to appeal to authorities for a protection from such 
deficiencies. Consequently, the authorities have not only the right, but also must intervene in 
the affairs of the market. This intervention in order to introduce mandatory compliance of 
technical specifications of the product and mandatory procedures for assessing compliance 
with these requirements, while maintaining the voluntary for use requirements and voluntary 
conformity assessment procedures takes the form of a legislation called "technical 
regulation". 
Governments or legislative bodies of different countries are developing different 
approaches on the use of technical regulations. In this аrеа they can concern technical 
regulations and product standards or conformity assessment, or both. They can focus only on 

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consumer protection (safety, hygiene, health care, protection from fraud), or regulatory 
objectives can be wider: in the food sector, for example, along with standards for security 
requirements there are mandatory standards for safety management system of production. 
Whatever the actual practice of formation of technical legislation in the country, 
development of regulations must meet the previously marked requirements set out in the TBT 
Agreement: 

public discussion and openness 

legal legitimacy 

transparency(information accessibility) 

argumentation 

effectiveness and expediency 

complexity 

non-discriminatory 

based on international standards and other international documents 

focus on the development. 
The government can implement these requirements by different ways, and also may in 
any way bind the standards to technical regulations, may enter into any agreement on these 
issues with other countries. 
In the Russian Federation an access to the adopted technical regulations is provided 
free of charge to any person on the websites of government organizations and in relevant 
public information systems.