The World Organisation for Animal Health’s (OIE) mission is to foster global co-operation to improve animal health, animal welfare and veterinary public health worldwide. OIE Members develop and adopt international standards to better co-ordinate their approach to prevent and control animal diseases, facilitate safe international trade as well as strengthen national Veterinary Services.

The protection of animal health and welfare is one of many areas where governments can benefit from co-operating internationally and co-ordinating their national policies. Without the implementation of prevention and control measures, animal diseases can spread both within and between countries. The dissemination of animal diseases around the world can be devastating for animal production, human health (for zoonotic diseases) and have serious consequences for national economies. Intergovernmental co-operation is therefore essential to prevent the spread of diseases across borders and to provide sanitary measures that ensure safe international trade of live animals and animal products.

This study provides a diagnostic of the existing normative work, related governance structure and information collection mechanisms of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and provides recommendations to support the OIE in establishing an Observatory on the Implementation of Standards.

This chapter maps the corpus of normative instruments developed by the OIE, outlines the organisational structure supporting its normative activity, and describes the process of implementation of OIE standards. It finds that the OIE develops different voluntary normative instruments, commonly referred to as OIE international standards, which are recognised as reference standards in the areas of animal health (including zoonoses) and animal welfare. The Codes and Manuals, which are the core normative instruments of the OIE, are developed following a largely expert-driven and participatory standard-setting procedure. However, despite their recognised usefulness by OIE Members, evidence on the actual uptake of OIE standards in domestic legislation remains scarce, reflecting uneven process for their domestic application and inconsistent monitoring of their use. The implementation process is neither defined nor prescribed by the OIE, and Members have much leeway in considering, referencing and using OIE standards.

This chapter takes stock of the mechanisms that currently exist within the OIE or beyond that are used, or may be used, to gather information on the implementation of OIE standards in domestic jurisdictions. The current chapter finds 13 such mechanisms, most of which are set up by the OIE itself, and others that exist in the context of the World Trade Organisation or of the European Union for example. These mechanisms were initially set up to address specific needs, such as evaluating the quality and building domestic capacity of veterinary services, or monitoring the effects of domestic regulations on trade among others. Therefore the information they provide on the implementation of OIE standards is limited in scope and irregular in frequency. This chapter identifies the extent to which these existing mechanisms can be used to feed into the work of the OIE observatory and where further information is needed.

This chapter provides recommendations to support the establishment of the OIE Observatory on Standards Implementation. These recommendations build on the specificities of OIE standards, the institutional framework of the OIE, and the existing information collection mechanisms as reflected in previous chapters, as well as on a comparative analysis of selected IO experiences.