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What is Harmonization?

What is Harmonization?

Harmonization is the name given to the effort by industry to replace the variety of product standards and other regulatory policies adopted by nations in favor of uniform global standards. The harmonization effort gained a significant boost with the approval of several new international agreements, particularly the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which established the World Trade Organization (WTO). These pacts require or encourage national governments to harmonize standards or accept different, foreign standards as "equivalent" on issues as diverse as auto, food and worker safety, pharmaceutical testing standards and informational labeling of products. These trade agreements have also established an ever-increasing number of committees and working groups to implement the harmonization mandate. The WTO alone established over 50. Unfortunately, most of these working groups are industry dominated, do not provide an opportunity for input by interested individuals or potentially-affected communities, and generally conduct their operations behind closed doors. Yet, under current trade rules, these standard- setting processes can directly affect our national, state and local policies.

What is the Harmonization Project of Public Citizen?

Because a significant portion of the standards targeted for international harmonization are found in U.S. regulations - not law- important U.S. policies could be made to conform to international standards without any sort of legislative action, hearings or public involvement. Thus, the Harmonization Project will investigate, document and track harmonization activities now underway, bring them to the attention of the public and the media, and encourage citizen involvement in the process. Via our web page www.harmonizationalert.org and Harmonization Alert, we will post notice of proposed changes to U.S. regulations, comment periods, and important meetings dates and times. By increasing the transparency of the process, serving as a clearinghouse on a broad array of harmonization activities and making available otherwise obscure information, we hope that more citizens, groups and organizations will get involved and have an impact on global standard-setting. Public Citizen's new Harmonization Project is supported by grants from the Ford Foundation, the National Association for Public Interest Law and the Cummings Foundation. Founded by Ralph Nader in 1971, Public Citizen is a non-profit research, litigation and advocacy organization dedicated to consumer rights in the marketplace, worker safety and safe products, a healthy environment, fair trade, and citizen empowerment in government policy making.

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