One of the most significant recent trends in global trade governance has been the increasing use of regulatory “reliance” arrangements as a significant element of trade alliances. Against this backdrop, an important set of questions are raised about how existing institutions of global trade governance – especially the World Trade Organization and international regulatory standards organisations – should respond. To what extent, and how, should such institutions facilitate reliance arrangements? And what role can they usefully play in overseeing and guiding their use? This paper begins to answer these questions through a focused case study of regulatory reliance in the agrifood sector. Four challenges are identified regarding the implementation of such arrangements: the high costs of establishment and maintenance; the lack of agreed and reliable assessment methodologies; the potential for arbitrary discrimination between trade partners; and the difficulties of dealing with regulatory change over time. In light of these challenges, the paper assesses the work of existing international organisations in governing reliance arrangements in the agrifood sector. The paper concludes with a number of preliminary suggestions as to how this architecture of global governance might be supplemented or harnessed to address some of the challenges posed by reliance arrangements.

全球贸易治理最近最重要的趋势之一是越来越多地使用监管“依赖”安排作为贸易联盟的重要组成部分。在此背景下，人们提出了一系列重要问题，即现有的全球贸易治理机构 — — 特别是世界贸易组织和国际监管标准组织 — — 应如何应对。这些机构应在多大程度上以及如何促进信赖安排？他们在监督和指导其使用方面可以发挥什么作用？本文首先通过对农产品行业监管依赖的重点案例研究来回答这些问题。实施此类安排存在四个挑战：建立和维护成本高昂；缺乏商定且可靠的评估方法；贸易伙伴之间可能存在任意歧视；以及随着时间的推移应对监管变化的困难。鉴于这些挑战，本文评估了现有国际组织在管理农业食品部门的依赖安排方面的工作。本文最后就如何补充或利用这种全球治理架构来解决依赖安排带来的一些挑战提出了一些初步建议。