This collection resulted from an international workshop funded and organised by Biosecurity Australia, the agency of government responsible for analysing Australia's quarantine import risks and for negotiating multilateral SPS rules and less restrictive access to overseas markets for Australian produce. The workshop, which was held at the Melbourne Business School on 24-25 October 2000, brought together a distinguished group of applied economists and quarantine policy analysts whose focus involves regions as disparate as Europe, North America, Africa, Asia and New Zealand, in addition to Australia.

The editors are very grateful to the authors for preparing, presenting and then revising their papers promptly following the workshop; to David Robertson for organising the venue and for summing up the workshop and the proceedings; to all the paper discussants and especially Richard Snape whose paper with David Orden (Chapter 10) was born and developed during the workshop discussion; to Jane Russell of Adelaide University's Centre for International Economic Studies for ably assisting the editors in producing this volume to a tight deadline; and to Biosecurity Australia for resourcing both the workshop and this proceedings volume.