International Commodity Clearing

Clearly this type of comparison will be affected by international differences other than regulatory ones—in particular, the different states of sophistication of pharmacological and pharmaceutical science and technology between countries, and the state of development and prominence of the industry in different countries economies. Nevertheless, although communication channels from the U.S. National Institutes of Health to U.S. firms are potentially shorter, basic knowledge is an international commodity. Substantial information can therefore be obtained from international comparisons, as in the case of the international comparison between the U.S. and Britain for the period 1962-1971 performed by one of the authors.(20, 21, 22)... 

Many commodities traded internationally are not classified in the Codex Classification of Commodities. The portion to which MRL should be applied for international trade is not clearly defined. Since there is no international agreement on this, an arbitrary imposition of portions to which MRLs apply to reject or accept a crop is a common practice especially in developing countries. This has occurred on several occasions and has given rise to unnecessary trade dispute. These commodities should be elaborated at the international level and portions of the commodity should be clearly defined. The MRL for mango for example, is clearly defined as the whole fruit, but analysis is conducted without the seed for practical reasons. This however, is not applicable to other tropical fruits such as durian, jackfruit, lychee, duku, langsat, wax apple, rambutan, etc. 

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