Public procurement and private standards: ensuring sustainability under the WTO Agreement on government procurement

With the globalization of the supply chain around different countries, the effective implementation of social and environmental objectives in procurement practices becomes a crucial priority. For this reason, the inclusion in procurement practices of transnational private regulations (TPRs) such as standards, labelling, and certifications has drastically increased as an instrument of verification for environmental and social criteria. However, the use of these private initiatives is not immune from critics and concerns, in particular regarding its international legal implications. If standards and labels provide important information on the suppliers and guidance alongside the procurement process, their inclusion in the procurement documents has also the potential to generate distortive and discriminatory effects on international competition and market access dynamics, resulting in a barrier to trade. This article analyses the main international legal implications inside the World Trade Organization (WTO) regulatory framework of the use of private standards in public procurement. The inclusion of these voluntary initiatives will be analysed under the lens of the non-discriminatory principle framed in the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) of the WTO, establishing a comparative analysis with the Agreement on Technical Barrier to Trade.