Less (and More) Than It Seems- WTO vs. Europe

[Clara T]

Less (and More) Than It Seems
WTO vs. Europe

By BRIAN TOKAR

In the late Spring of 2003, amidst the political fallout of "Old Europe's" refusal to support the US invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration threw down a gauntlet that threatened to permanently aggravate transatlantic hostilities. As a political favor to its agribusiness allies in the Midwestern farm belt, the administration filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO) seeking to overturn Europe's de facto five-year moratorium on approvals of new genetically engineered crop varieties. The governments of Argentina and Canada also signed on to the complaint; together these three countries grow roughly 80 percent of the world's genetically engineered crops.

Just last week, the substance of the WTO's decision on this case was released to the parties involved, and almost immediately leaked to the press. As nearly everyone expected, the WTO's anonymous three-judge panel ruled that some of Europe's restrictions on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) violate global trade rules, and that any attempt to regulate this technology requires strict compliance with the trade body's exacting and often industry-biased scientific risk assessment procedures. Perhaps more than any previous WTO decision, the ruling confirmed many people's fears about the role this secretive and unaccountable trade body would play in today's world.

The response to the decision from both sides of the global GMO debate was immediate. Supporters of the technology were quick to declare victory, and denounce European concerns about genetic engineering as mere protectionism for European vs. American agricultural products. They predicted that the WTO would impose penalties of over a billion dollars to compensate US companies for lost European exports, and claimed this decision 'proved' that opposition to GMOs has no scientific basis. Critics of the biotech industry denounced the WTO's violation of people's right to make appropriate choices about their food and how it is grown, and pointed out that Europeans would not begin consuming genetically engineered corn or soybeans as a result of this decision. Its main impact would be on other countries still struggling to address the implications of this technology. "he WTO suit is clearly an effort to chill other nations from pursuing any regulations on GE foods," explained an alliance of 15 US-based NGOs in a statement that immediately preceded the ruling. African and Asian governments are by far the most conspicuous targets.

On one hand, the WTO panel ruled against the European Union (EU) in each of the three substantive areas addressed by the US complaint. First, the unnamed trade judges declared that Europe had indeed imposed a sweeping moratorium on new genetically engineered crop varieties, in violation of the international trade agreement on "Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures." Second, they ruled that approvals of 24 specific GMO crop varieties had been illegally delayed. Third, the judges declared that additional prohibitions imposed by six countries-Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and Luxemburg-are inconsistent with these countries' obligations as members of the global trade body. But on the other hand, the WTO officials were careful to point out that they had dismissed most aspects of the US complaint. This is clear from the concluding 22 pages of the 1050 page decision, the only portion that has been publicly released. The decision, for example, explicitly does not address the safety of biotech products, their similarity (or not) to conventional crop varieties, countries' right to require pre-market approval of GE varieties, nor even the European Union's specific regulatory procedures. The WTO panel affirmed that member countries have the right to consider all possible hazards of GMOs in their risk assessments, even those that are perceived to be "highly unlikely to occur."

http://www.counterpunch.org/tokar02182006.html