OIE List A disease as a constraint to international trade

World Trade Organisation agreements have swept aside many of the previous constraints to international trade in animals and animal products and have looked critically at those that still survive. The presence of disease, in particular the OIE list A diseases, still provide legitimacy for barriers to trade, and as a consequence the importance of reliable animal disease surveillance has increased. However, the economic consequences of reporting the occurrence of a List A disease have also increased, as this provides trading partners with sufficient reason to impose an embargo that could severely compromise the national agricultural industry. The dilemma for some developing economies, reliant on agricultural exports, is how to balance a transparent and efficient disease reporting service, sufficient to provide the necessary information for importing countries to make realistic risk assessments, with the perceived political damage from being honest with trading partners who might take advantage of the information to require additional safeguards and health certification.