[Gen-Streitfall] Fwd: Inside US Trade: Likely new WTO challenge on EU GMO policy

[Andreas Bauer]

Liebe Streitfall-Leute!
Anscheinend ist es jetzt soweit mit der zweiten Klage der USA, diesmal gegen
die EU-Kennzeichnungsverordnung.
Gruß,
Andreas


ASA TAKES LEAD IN PUSHING FOR NEW WTO GMO CASE AGAINST EU

_______________________________________________

Date: March 12, 2004

The American Soybean Association is taking the lead in preparing a World 
Trade Organization challenge of the European Union's regulations 
requiring tracing and labeling for genetically modified organisms, 
according to informed sources. The group is seeking commitments from 
other agricultural associations for about $1 million to hire a law firm 
to do the initial preparation for a potential case, and to do the 
necessary legal work and advocacy if the Bush Administration were to 
decide to go forward with a WTO challenge, according to these sources.


Such a case could drag out for two or three years, they said. ASA is 
open to accepting tentative commitments from other trade associations 
that they would contribute funds to the preparation of a WTO case, one 
informed industry source said. Other sources said ASA has had 
difficulties in getting a firm commitment from other groups for getting 
funds.



The two law firms being considered for work on a potential case are 
Steptoe & Johnson and Willmer, Cutler & Pickering, these sources said. 
But they emphasized that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has 
not made a commitment to take such a case, and has emphasized that there 
has been no interagency process to even consider such a step, these 
sources said. The EU's traceability and labeling rules will go into 
effect this April; the traceability rules ask that shipments to the EU 
contain precise information about GMO content when they first enter the 
market. The labeling rules require that all products containing GMOs 
above a 0.9 percent threshold be so labeled.



U.S. agriculture groups opposing the EU's traceability and labeling 
rules have charged that they violate the WTO's Agreement on Technical 
Barriers to Trade (TBT) and the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary 
and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS). ASA took the lead in generating a 
letter last year signed by 20 agriculture and agri-business groups that 
demanded immediate USTR action against the new EU rules (Inside U.S. 
Trade, Nov. 28, p. 6).



Since then, industry associations organized as the Ag Biotech Planning 
Committee chaired by ASA has had a series of meetings with the 
Administration, one industry source said. He said the group included 
associations representing producers, food processors and grocery 
manufacturers.



The TBT stipulates that countries' technical regulations and standards 
should not be more trade restrictive than necessary or create 
unnecessary obstacles to trade. The SPS agreement stipulates that health 
measures should be based on sufficient scientific evidence and a risk 
assessment, and not serve a disguised barrier to trade.



The traceability rules lack a scientific basis because all the products 
to which they apply have been approved by EU regulators as safe, 
opponents of these rules have charged. In addition, these rules 
constitute a discrimination against products that are largely imported 
because they demand that foods produced with GMO ingredients be traced 
while there is no such requirement for biotechnology enzymes used in the 
production of EU beer or cheese, one industry source said.



Opponents see the labeling rules as violating the TBT because they are 
more trade restrictive than necessary to provide trade information to 
consumers.



In a related development, European Commissioner for Health and Consumer 
Protection David Byrne will visit the U.S. from March 18 to 20 to 
discuss traceability and food safety with Agriculture Secretary Ann 
Veneman and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick. He will also meet 
executive directors of the World Bank, Deputy Secretary of Health and 
Human Services Claude Allen, the Grocery Manufacturers of America, the 
American Farm Bureau and a representative from the Food and Drug 
Administration, either Commissioner Mark McClellan or his deputy.



Meanwhile, World Trade Organization Director-General Supachai 
Panitchpakdi has selected the panelists that will adjudicate the U.S. 
challenge of the EU's moratorium on approving new GMOs and the ban of 
member states on GMOs already approved for sale. In a decision released 
on March 4, the WTO announced the selection of Christian Haeberli, 
deputy head of the GATT/WTO division in the Swiss Federal Office for 
Foreign and Economic Affairs, as the panel's chairman. In addition, 
Supachai named Mohan Kumar, India's Deputy High Commissioner in the 
Diplomatic Mission in Sri Lanka, and Akio Shimizu, a law professor at 
Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan as the two panelists.



Furthermore, Supachai on Feb. 23 named Miguel Rodriguez Mendoza as 
chairman of the panel that will decide the U.S. challenge on the EU's 
system of protecting products with geographical names. Mendoza currently 
serves as head of Van Bael & Bellis, a Brussels-based international law 
firm, according to a biography issued by the WTO. Seung Wha Chang, a law 
professor at Seoul National University, and Peter Kam-fai Cheung, deputy 
director of the Intellectual Property Department of the Hong Kong 
Special Administrative Region Government, are the two panelists.



§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§
Steve Emmott
Advisor-WTO
Greens/European Free Alliance Group
European Parliament
1047 Brussels

Tel/fax Brussels +32 2 284 2026
Tel. Strasbourg +333 88 17 3741

-------- Original-Nachricht --------
Betreff: Inside US Trade: Likely new WTO challenge on EU GMO policy
Weitersenden-Datum: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 14:25:23 +0100 (CET)
Weitersenden-Von: genet-news at genet-info.org
Datum: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 12:21:10 +0100
Von: Stephen Emmott <semmott at europarl.eu.int>
An: <GENET-news <GENET-news at genet-info.org>