Provisional Translation
| OTO No. | 648 | Classification | MAFF-(5) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Date of Acceptance | April 19, 2002 | Ministry/Agency Receiving Complaint | Cabinet Office |
| Responsible Ministries | Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries | Related Laws | Law Concerning Standardization And Proper Labeling Of Agricultural And Forestry Products(JAS Law) |
| Complainant | Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Japan | Exporting Countries | The Federal Republic of Germany and other EU countries |
| Subject | Reduction of burdens concerning organic JAS certification for organic agricultural produce produced in Germany | ||
| Description of Complaint | 1. The revision of the JAS Law concerning "organic" labels (Article 19, Clause 10) took effect on April 1, 2001. The Law states that "organic agricultural produce and organic agricultural processed foods" must satisfy the organic Japanese Agricultural Standard (JAS) if they are to be imported into Japan and labeled and sold as organic. 2. Negotiations toward the close of 2000 between the EU and Japan brought the two parties to an understanding that the EU standards for organic products, based on Directive 2092/91 concerning organic vegetable products, were equivalent to the JAS requirements and standards concerning organic vegetable products. As a result of this, the two parties agreed toward the close of 2000 to confirm the "equivalence" of their standards in a verbal note. Based on the understanding, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries published the equivalence of the two standards in its official gazette dated March 9, 2001 to announce the validity of the EU standards. The EU also confirmed the equivalence of JAS to the EU standards within the EU. The complainant thinks that, at this point of time, the EU and Japan were expected to clear all problems by mutually reporting certification organizations approved within the EU and in Japan for their organic certification. After that, however, the ministry introduced Registered Foreign Certification Organizations (RFCOs) as the system for accrediting foreign certification organizations and a system of additional import certification for the import of organic products. 3. To deal with two additional demands made by the ministry, the complainant is considering two ideas: a) to register organic certification organizations in the EU as RFCOs (registered foreign certification organizations prescribed by the JAS Law); and b) to make importers allowed to handle JAS organic products to submit certificates of the government of the EU member country that exports organic products to Japan. 4. The contents of import certificates or certificates for RFCOs that Japan demands far exceed those of the certificates that Japanese exporters must state when they make applications within the EU. Based on the principle of equivalence, the complainant would like earnestly to secure a fair treatment on this point. By acquiring fair treatment, a) the complainant will be able to remove the limits of RFCOs' administrative powers in practice in Japan (i.e. German certification organizations cannot have administrative powers as certification organizations approved until they make an application). b) the complainant will be able to solve the problem of approved importers having to attach certificates to organic products exported from Germany. |
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| Details of Measures | The ministry replied as follows: This complaint contains a misunderstanding of facts. There is no fact of the EU admitting Japan's organic JAS system as equivalent to its own system and discussions on the equivalence, which Japan proposed in January 2002 to hold, have not started yet. Japan introduced the RFCO system and a system of additional import certification when it revised the JAS Law in 1999, not after the "agreement on the equivalence." Although the ministry pointed out the misunderstanding by a telephone call to the complainant and asked about the real purposes of the complaint, it has made no answer for this yet. The ministry has sent an explanation about the misunderstanding through the Secretariat of the OTO. Incidentally, the ministry has been conducting negotiations on the equivalence with the EU through the representative office of the EU. The ministry has made explanations on the RFCO system and the system of import certification in the negotiations. As for the procedure for the RFCO system and so on, it held two explanatory meetings for the embassies of EU member countries in Japan and one meeting in Geneva. |
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| Classification of Processing | Cc | Directions | II-b |
| Remarks | A written reply was made on August 21, 2002. | ||