Diverse Regulatory Approaches - Essay Example

Trade in genetically modified crops European De facto Moratorium Introduction : The important break through in the field of biotechnology and important key word that buzzed through the trade groups around 1996 is the Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO). By 1996 United States of America introduced Genetically Engineered Corn, Cotton, Soya beans. A sizeable sector in the industrial area is thriving on the production of GMOs, leading to a profitable farming. By 1998 more than 500 genetically modified plant varieties were available in US accounting for its 28% of Plantation area of Maize, Soya beans, Cotton. Following the heel of America (68%) were Canada (7%) and Argentina (23%) who also had hectares of land devoted to GMOs. Consequently these 3 countries had significant interest in International market access for GMOs. With the market for GM was spread world wide, European Union was the third largest market for US agricultural exports. But Europe had been slower to accept and introduce GM crops. Post the outbreak of mad cow disease, EU has a widespread concern about the quality and safety of GM foods as they weigh consumer confidence more. Groups like green peace and scientists of European union had long expressed their views of impact of GMOs on health and environment is unpredictable and has stressed that exercise of caution on production and consumption of GM foods in European Union. Bio technology being a revolutionary technology, its application in agricultural and medical sector has lead to the growing number of GMOs, EC defining it as an organism except human being in which the Genetic material is altered not by natural way i.e not by mating or by natural recombination. (C. Ford Runge, Gian-Luca Bagnara, Dott Lee Ann Jackson, 2001) (1) . In response the rapid expansion of GM foods, countries have developed diverse regulatory approaches for production marketing and development of these products. The Unites States has particularly been a strong advocate of biotechnology industries by formulating intellectual property protection and limited government regulations on production and marketing. On contrast Europe has always approach biotechnology with wide skepticism and had been slow in granting regulatory approval for any new product. This Trans Atlantic differences might be contributed to variation in political economical and cultural characteristics, raging a war among trade, agriculture and consumer policy.( Simonetta Zarrilli ) (2) Background: The European union and United States of America had a strong disagreement on regulation on genetically modified foods. With minor exception the EU has not approved any GM product since 1998. US claims that regulations violates free trade agreement where as European union counters it by saying that free trade is not truly free without informed consent. In Europe from 1990 an serious of un related food crises led to consumer’s apprehension about food safety and food industry. Public were widely concerned about the effect of GMOs on health and environment. Majority of European customers demanded their rights on informed choice on whether to take or not the GM foods. Majority of them demanded for labeling of the products and traceability of them containing more than 0.5% of GM as precautionary principles. (3) European De facto Moratorium: To understand background of the defacto moratorium, it becomes essential to understand the turmoil of events that took place in Europe during 1990’s and particularly the BSE safety food scandal that struk by 1996. The outbreak of mad cow disease lead to a wide spread public concern over the safety of food, and in this background the GMO’s was introduced in Europe . Soy the widely used food of Europe was imported from US. This was closely followed by WTO ruling of the hormone treated beef, in favour of US that lead to an anti wave. The major source of dissatisfaction over GMOs in Europe was the structure of the approval procedure at the EU level, which was not deemed to be transparent nor based on sufficient scientific evidence. In particular, the dominant position of the Commission came under attack. As a result of these tensions, the EU levied a de facto moratorium in 1998 on GMO approvals until a new regulatory framework was in place. The subsequent decision-making process for these new regulations took place amid a highly tense political atmosphere between stakeholders (industry, consumers, environmental, agriculture and aid-NGO groups), very different national positions and a highly splintered European Parliament. Apart from creating more transparent approval procedures, the final regulations lean on consumer interests, since new labelling requirements follow the philosophy of “consumer choice” rather than environmental protection (Pollack and Shaffe , 2005) (Skogstad, 2003) (4) (5 ) The features of the defacto moratorium can be said as ,by 1998 European union brought an de facto moratorium that lead to the suspension of approvals of all new genetically modified organisms, while the import and cultivation of already approved GM food continued. The EU, revised rules that governed marketing and approval and labeling of GM products. The new labeling and traceability rules recovered all products with the GMO content of 0.9% to be labeled and also the derived products in which the GM content cannot be traced should also be labeled. The presence of 0.5% of GM in unlabeled products was considered to be safe for human consumption but only for ensuing 3 years after which they would be banned. The de facto moratorium made traceability of GMO products mandatory from sowing to marketing. They introduced the process of attaching a special harmless DNA sequence called DNA code bar that helps in identifying the origin of crops and helps regulators to spot other details with ease. Mandatory labeling was made essential for all the products entering Europe. The US, Canada and Argentina challenged the EU’s de facto moratorium before the World Trade Organization approving new agricultural biotechnology products. The claimants demands that EU’s policy has both blocked their exports, reducing their trade margin considerably and also as fueled unwarranted concerns regarding the safety of GM crops through out the world. Where as the defendants claims that they are moving as quickly as possible to reinstate bio technology approvals at the same time trying to reassure their consumers regarding safety issues. Since the US and EU has different regulatory schemes which are based on their national perceptive and diverse tradition, they had an international conflict over GMO policy particularly in GMO trade. The world trade organization created a dispute settlement panel to investigate the EU’s moratorium – the demand of them for labeling all the GM products.( Geoffrey S. Becker and Charles Hanrahan, 2007) (6) The US stand point: The US explanation to the WTO regarding the EU’s moratorium is as follows : The US defends its position that GM foods is no different from non GM foods and they should be considered like products. They also insist that domestically existing regulation for ensuring human health and safety is enough to deal with GMOs. US scientists testify that GM food is both nutritionally and safety wise equal to conventional foods. The US opposes the mandatory labeling, though it permits the voluntary labeling, their concept is that labeling would kindle a thought that GM foods are different from its counter parts and it would also dramatize a non existing safety risks that would stigmatize GM foods. The label might convey the point that GM foods are un safe for conception, since there is no known risks of consuming GM foods. More over labeling standards vary across the countries and it would increase the costs for exporters. (Colin A. Carter and Guillaume P. Gruere, 2003) (7) The high cost that has to be met due to the introduction of mandatory labeling was another cause of concern addressed by US. The labeling is the new point in the process of segregating and identity preservation of GMOs that is a further stumbling block in the path of GM technology. Segregation and Identity preservation both needs separate containerisation and demands the farmer to plant GM and non GM crop separately. (D.S. Bullock 1,a,& M. Desquilbet ,2002) (8) The USpoint is that the EU’s GM regulations are in conflict with the SPS and Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Agreements of the WTO. The SPS Agreement deals with regulations that are used to protect health and safety while the TBT covers technical regulations that focus on non-safety related attributes of products. While the SPS agreement requires that regulations to be based on science and a risk assessment, the TBT requires that regulations be applied in a manner to be least trade disruptive and and at reasonable cost. It does not require scientific justification. Labeling of GMOs could be covered by the TBT Agreement if labeling is designed to cover a range of issues not explicitly related to health concerns, such as providing consumers with information for ethical reasons. In that case, the dispute would revolve around the least trade distorting form of labeling. On the other hand, if labeling is for safety reasons then the SPS Agreement would need to be invoked and a science-based risk assessment would be needed to justify EU’s regulations and labeling requirements. The WTO’s labeling rules encourage the use of international standards but these do not yet exist for GMOs. Futher US feels that the labeling also violates the GATT article 1 –non discrimination and 3 national treatment.(3) Thus the US trade policy applies before WTO that trade policies should not discriminate against the import of GM products among WTO members. The US believes that the EU is not taking a scientific approach instead is allowing the political factors and interest group pressures to influence the trade policy and seek protection from WTO against technology driven competition. The US objects the moratorium because of the length of the time it takes to approve, the influence of the politics in decision-making, the lack of transparency and predictability of the system. The further remains that the moratorium is not published in any official journals and it conflicts with SPS and TBT agreements of WTO. (Nicholas Perdikis, 2000) (9) The WTO dispute settlement panel on 2006 and hearing US claim and EU’s defense ruled in favor of compliance and removed the bans that existed till then. Thus the Trans Atlantic row was solved. Bibliography: 1. C. Ford Runge, Gian-Luca Bagnara, Dott Lee Ann Jackson, 2001, Differing U.S. and European Perspectives on gmos: Political,Economic and Cultural Issues, Vo l um e 2 N um b e r 2 , p . 2 2 1 - 2 3 4 ,Th e Es tey Cent re Jo urnal of I n t e rn ational L aw And Trade Po l i cy 2. Simonetta Zarrilli ,United nations conference on trade and development International trade in gmos: legal frameworks And developing country concerns 3. ACE 355: International Trade in Food and Agriculture World Trade Organization Dispute Settlement: Case Study III ,Trade in Genetically Modified Crops 4. Pollack, M. A. and Shaffer, G.C. 2005. ‘Biotechnology Policy. Between National Fears and Global Disciplines’ in Wallace, H; Wallace, W. and Pollack, M. A. (eds), Policy-Making in the European Union. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 5. Skogstad, G. 2003. ‘Legitimacy and/or policy effectiveness? Network governance and GMO regulation in the European Union’, Journal of European Public Policy, 10, 3, 321-38. 6. Geoffrey S. Becker and Charles Hanrahan, 2007, European Union Moratorium on Biotech Crops. 7. Colin A. Carter and Guillaume P. Gruere, 2003, International Approaches to the Labeling of Genetically Modified Foods, CHOICES The magazine of food, farm and resource issues, American Agricultural Economics Association. 8. D.S. Bullock 1,a,& M. Desquilbet ,2002, The economics of non-GMO segregation and Identity preservation, Food Policy 27 , 81–99. 9. Nicholas Perdikis, 2000, A Conflict of Legitimate ConcernsOr Pandering to Vested Interests?Conflicting Attitudes Towards the Regulation of Tr a d e In Genetically Modified Goods – The EU and the US, Vo l um e 1 Num b e r 1 , / p . 5 1 - 6 5 , Th e Es tey Cent re Jo urnal of I n t e rn ational L aw And Trade Policy Read More