Private product standards are products of private law, but are affected by international trade law in various ways. This article examines the impact of World Trade Organization (WTO) law, and in particular of the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), on the governance of private standard-setting bodies. An overview of the ways in which WTO law can apply to private standards bodies is provided. Then, the article looks at the procedural avenues through which the measures of those bodies can be challenged on the basis of TBT law. Third, it asks where the potential impact of TBT law on the governance of standards bodies is greatest. The article concludes that a meaningful impact of WTO law on the governance of private standard-setting bodies is less likely to be found in direct enforcement, and that indirect mechanisms might be more fruitful. Among them are the reliance on the influence of States over private standards bodies in the case of standards that are co-opted in public law or ‘juridified’; the incentives provided by the TBT rules on international standards; and the leveraging of TBT rules through voluntary acceptance by standards bodies, private law adjudication, or even private enforcement.
European Review of Private Law