International regime conflict in trade and environment: the Biosafety Protocol and the WTO

2003 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
GILBERT R. WINHAM
Keyword(s):  
Food Safety ◽  
Genetically Modified Organisms ◽  
Science And Society ◽  
Trade And Environment ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Cartagena Protocol On Biosafety ◽  
The Us ◽  
Cartagena Protocol ◽  
Sanitary And Phytosanitary Agreement ◽  
The Eu

Trade and environment constitute regimes in international relations: they are vehicles for cooperation between nation states that permit governments to address various subjects such as commercial non-discrimination, reduction of pollution, reciprocity and sustainable development. The issues of food safety and agricultural biotechnology (i.e., genetically modified organisms or GMOs) have been raised in both regimes, and have been managed in different and arguably inconsistent manners. In the trade regime, food safety and ag-biotech are mainly subject to the US-backed principle of ‘scientific risk assessment’ established in the WTO's Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement, while in the environment regime they would likely be addressed through the more politically based ‘precautionary principle’, promoted by the EU and represented in the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. Both the trade and environment regimes are rules-based, but conflict between them diminishes the force of precision and obligation needed to make rules effective. Furthermore, there is a danger that regime conflict could expand, thereby reducing the opportunity to promote an optimal relationship between science and society in the future.

scholarly journals The World Trade Organization's Report on the EU's Moratorium on Biotech Products: The Wisdom of the US Challenge to the EU in the WTO

2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Lieberman ◽  
Tim Gray
Keyword(s):  
World Trade ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Gm Food ◽  
Cartagena Protocol On Biosafety ◽  
The Us ◽  
Cartagena Protocol ◽  
The World ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Biotech Products ◽  
The Eu

The World Trade Organization (WTO) recently ruled on the case brought by the US, Canada and Argentina against the moratorium imposed by the European Union (EU) on imports of genetically-modified (GM) food and crops. Although the WTO's ruling has been greeted by the complainant countries as a victory, it found in their favor on only one narrow technical procedural issue, and it rejected more substantive challenges to the EU moratorium. In this article, we analyze the WTO report and explain the issues at stake, focusing particularly on the question of why the USA chose the WTO as the forum for its challenge to the EU moratorium, and whether it was wise to do so. Has the USA achieved its aims through the trade-specific WTO, or should it have taken its challenge to the more hostile, but environment-specific forum of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety? Alternatively, should the USA have refrained from mounting an official international challenge at all?

The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and Shifts in the Discourse of Precaution

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 25-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Andrée
Keyword(s):  
Genetically Modified Organisms ◽  
Biological Diversity ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Convention On Biological Diversity ◽  
Spongiform Encephalopathy ◽  
Cartagena Protocol On Biosafety ◽  
Cartagena Protocol ◽  
Discursive Politics ◽  
Policy Fields ◽  
And Shifts

The precautionary principle is increasingly recognized as an important tool in multilateral environmental policy making, even as its practical implications remain the subject of intense debate. Drawing on Foucault's reading of discursive politics, this paper traces the emergence and effects of a specific framing of a precautionary response to new technologies found in the 2000 Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the Convention on Biological Diversity. This international treaty enables states to restrict imports of specific classes of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), even if the extent of the harm they may cause remains uncertain. This particular framing of precaution in an environmental treaty is novel for its application to technologies yet to be demonstrated as harmful, and can only be understood in the context of the contentiousness of controversies over GMOs, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), and hormone-injected beef in the 1990s. At the same time, what might be termed the “Cartagena discourse of precaution” has already had productive effects on a variety of other policy fields including the regulation of persistent organic pollutants and pesticides.

scholarly journals THE EUROPEAN UNION, THE UNITED STATES, AND THE GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISMS (GMOs)

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-20
Author(s):  
Anisa ◽  
Chelsilya ◽  
Grace Yohana ◽  
Mucco Eva ◽  
Morry Zefanya ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Genetically Modified Organisms ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Genetically Modified ◽  
The United States ◽  
Environmental Damage ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Eu

Current technological advances have been present in all aspects of human life, including technological advances in biotechnology. Biotechnology not only raises hope for science but also raises heated debates among scientists, especially between the European Union and the US. This debate arises because of differences in perspective between the EU and the US. The EU has stringent rules regarding the development efforts of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). At the same time, the US thinks that GMOs are part of agriculture, so there is no need for any special laws to regulate them. Various side effects also come hand in hand with the birth of GMOs. They are ranging from adverse effects on human health, the health of food products, and even environmental damage. The development of GMOs can damage the ecosystem of species that exist in the environment. Still, more complex problems arise due to GMOs like economic problems and monopolies.   Keywords: The  GMOs, The EU, The US.

scholarly journals Transparency as Contested Political Terrain: Who Knows What about the Global GMO Trade and Why does it Matter?

2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 32-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aarti Gupta
Keyword(s):  
Information Disclosure ◽  
Genetically Modified Organisms ◽  
Right To Know ◽  
Agricultural Commodity ◽  
Commodity Trade ◽  
Caveat Emptor ◽  
Global Context ◽  
Cartagena Protocol On Biosafety ◽  
Cartagena Protocol ◽  
Disclosure Obligations

This article explores the prospects for transparency to be a transformative force in global biosafety governance. It analyzes whether information disclosure can further a right to know and choose, and hence facilitate oversight over transnational transfers of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). It examines the question of “Whose right to know what and why?” with regard to GMOs in the agricultural commodity trade in relation to the global Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. I argue that the limited disclosure obligations in this global context follow rather than shape market developments, and that complex infrastructures of sampling, testing and detection are required to put disclosed information to use. If so, rather than a normative right-to-know of importing countries, a competing norm of caveat emptor (let the buyer beware) prevails. I conclude that the potential of transparency to empower remains unrealized, particularly for the poorest countries most reliant on globally-induced disclosure.

The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and the Wto—Co-Existence or Incoherence?

2000 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 835-855 ◽  
Author(s):  
Asif H. Qureshi
Keyword(s):  
Genetically Modified Organisms ◽  
Genetically Modified ◽  
Cartagena Protocol On Biosafety ◽  
Legal Perspective ◽  
Cartagena Protocol ◽  
Two Systems ◽  
Liberal Trade ◽  
Biotechnology Products ◽  
New Millennium

The beginning of the new millennium spawned a biosafety protocol1 for the transboundary movement of genetically modified organisms,2 against the background of an existing WTO code3 concerned mainly with liberal trade. The co-existence of the two codes, and their almost separate development, reflects the fact that the international movement of GMOs raises concerns both of biosafety and liberal trade. However, their co-existence also invites a number of questions—viz., the level to which they complement each other, the level of duplication, and the levels to which they are adequate qua normative frameworks for biotechnology products. In short, the two systems beg the question whether they co-exist happily, or provide for incoherence. This article is not intended as an exhaustive analysis of the codes, but rather as a framework for a focus on the respective codes, as well as their relationship to each other, from a legal perspective.

Independent Scientific Advice: Comparing Policies on Conflicts of Interest in the EU and the US

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simone Gabbi
Keyword(s):  
Food Safety ◽  
Conflict Of Interest ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
European Food Safety Authority ◽  
European Medicines Agency ◽  
Scientific Advice ◽  
The Us ◽  
The One ◽  
Food And Drugs Administration ◽  
The Eu

This article highlights the importance of unbiased scientific advice in the European Union's legal system. It then analyses and compares the policies in force throughout the European Food Safety Authority, European Medicines Agency and European Commission's Scientific Committees with the one implemented by the US Food and Drugs Administration. The author argues that at the present time the framework adopted and implemented by the European Food Safety Authority seems to be the most complete and stringent amongst those taken into account in the article and he advances some proposals for further improvement of the policies regulating conflict of interest.

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