Fwd: Smart Growth and WTO

[Ken Medlin <dev-plan@moscow.com>]

Subject:     Smart Growth and WTO
Sent:        11/5/19 7:23 AM
Received:    11/7/99 12:00 AM
From:        jkirk@micron.net
To:          smartgro@onenw.org


=====  A message from the 'smartgro' discussion list  =====

I am posting this because I believe that viewpoint known as smart growth
also must be concerned with what we eat and how it is grown.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) operates sometimes to protect the
interests of US coporations against other peoples' enviro laws, and at 
other
times it works against our own enviro  laws. It bears pointing out that Al
Gore, who has been billed as Mr Environment for years, actually is pro 
WTO,
pro-NAFTA which has taken thousands of jobs out of the US and sent them to
Mexico and beyond, and like the Clinton Administration in general, he has
also been in favor of genetically engineered seeds used as animal feed and
foods. Monsanto, the worst offender in the GE (genetically engineered)
wars, has a deep "in" with the current administration. So let's not 
deceive
ourselves about Al Gore as "Mr. Environment". He talks a good line, but on
to many serious concerns, it's just spin.
Jo Kirkpatrick
***************************************************************************
*
*****
Worldwatch New Brief 99-11
November 2, 1999
ENVIRONMENTAL TRADE SKIRMISHES DEMONSTRATE NEED FOR WTO REFORM

Hilary French

    The recent burgeoning of environmental trade wars highlights the need
for
reforming the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Thousands of
demonstrators expected to gather in late November in Seattle at a key WTO
meeting will challenge trade ministers to reconcile the rules of world 
trade
with the imperative of reversing global ecological decline.

One priority is to incorporate into WTO rules a greater respect for the
precautionary principle, which holds that where there are threats of 
serious
or
irreversible damage, lack of scientific certainty should not be used as a
reason
for postponing action. The WTO's provisions shift the burden of proof, in
effect
requiring that chemicals and food additives be proven harmful before their
use
can be restricted.

If the economy's environmental support systems are to be protected, 
several
other steps are also required. Among these are protecting consumers' right
to
know about the health and environmental impact of products they purchase 
by
safeguarding eco-labeling programs from trade challenges; deferring to
international environmental treaties in cases where they conflict with WTO
rules; insuring the right of countries to use trade measures to protect 
the
global environmental commons; and opening the WTO to meaningful public
participation. These changes are imperative if the WTO is to garner the
public
support it needs to stay in business.

Ongoing transatlantic food fights are emblematic of a new kind of global
trade
conflict, in which the stakes are the survival of national health and
environmental laws, rather than such traditional trade-war issues as
tariffs,
quotas, and the dumping of commodities like steel or wheat.
In a dispute between the United States and the European Union over the 
EU's
ban
on hormone-raised livestock, the WTO recently rejected the EU's defense 
that
the
measure was justified by the precautionary principle. The U.S. and the
European
Union have long locked horns over the EU law, which keeps hundreds of
millions
of dollars worth of U.S. hormone-raised beef off of European supermarket
shelves. The U.S. government took up the cause of its cattle industry,
arguing
that the hormone ban was an unfair trade barrier that violated WTO rules.

The EU insists the hormone ban is not an intentional trade barrier at all,
but
only a prudent response to public concern that eating hormone-raised beef
might
cause cancer and reproductive health problems. The EU has so far refused 
to
implement the WTO ruling against the hormone ban. Last July the U.S.
government
retaliated by imposing WTO-approved sanctions, slapping 100 percent 
tariffs
on
$116.8 million worth of European imports, including fruit juices, mustard,
pork,
truffles, and Roquefort cheese.

The beef hormone controversy is widely viewed as just a warm-up for a more
serious trade controversy over genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
Prompted
by public concern over the uncertain health and ecological effects of 
GMOs,
the
EU passed legislation in 1998 requiring all food products that contain
genetically modified soybeans or corn to be labeled, in order to give
consumers
the ability to choose for themselves whether or not to purchase these
products.
Several other countries, including Australia, Brazil, Japan, and South
Korea,
are now following suit. U.S. companies allege that the labeling 
requirements
amount to trade barriers, and both the U.S. and Canadian governments are 
now
voicing this concern at the WTO and in other international forums.

    Last February, a proposed biosafety protocol to the UN Convention on
Biological Diversity became the first major victim of the growing
international
trade war over GMOs. Negotiations had been underway for several years, 
aimed
at
putting in place a system of prior consent for the transport of 
genetically
engineered seeds and products. The talks were scheduled to wrap up in
Cartagena,
Colombia in February, but six major agricultural exporting
countries-Argentina,
Australia, Canada, Chile, the United States, and Uruguay-put a monkey 
wrench
into these plans by blocking adoption of the accord. One of the main U.S.
arguments against the protocol was a claim that its provisions ran counter
to
the rules of the WTO.

Although the U.S. government has few qualms about relying on WTO rules to
challenge other countries' laws when it suits U.S. trade interests, this
approach can backfire when U.S. environmental laws themselves come under
attack at the WTO. Several U.S. environmental laws have in fact been found
to be
"WTO-illegal" over the last few years. In the most recent case, a WTO
dispute
resolution panel ruled last year against provisions of a U.S. law aimed at
protecting endangered sea turtles.

Sea turtles are both endangered and highly mobile, making international
action
essential if they are to be protected. The provisions of the U.S. law in
question were designed to reduce the accidental death of sea turtles 
caused
by
shrimp trawling. The law closed off access to the lucrative U.S. shrimp
market
to countries that do not require their shrimpers to use the turtle 
excluder
devices (TEDs) that have been mandatory for U.S. fishers since 1988 or 
have
comparable policies.

Many nations, including 13 Latin American countries and Indonesia, 
Nigeria,
and
Thailand, responded to the U.S. law by requiring the use of TEDs. But 
India,
Malaysia, and Pakistan chose a different tack, launching a WTO challenge
rather
than meet the U.S. requirement. Although the environmental effectiveness 
of
the
U.S. law was clear, a WTO dispute resolution panel concluded in 1998 that
the
measure violated WTO rules, a decision that calls into question the 
ability
of
countries to take effective action to protect threatened global resources.

The accord that created the WTO in 1994 strengthened the terms of dispute
resolution proceedings to make rulings binding, and to provide for tougher
trade
retaliation in cases where countries are unwilling to adhere to panel
findings
by changing offending laws. But dispute resolution panels are typically
composed
of trade rather than environmental experts, and are conducted in closed
sessions. Making WTO proceedings more transparent is essential for an
organization that stands in judgment on environmental laws that were 
passed
by
democratically elected bodies.


-END-


Hilary French is Vice President for Research at the Worldwatch Institute.
She is
the author of "Challenging the WTO," in the November/December 1999 issue 
of
World Watch magazine, and author of a forthcoming book, Vanishing Borders:
Protecting the Planet in the Age of Globalization, to be published by W.W.
Norton & Co. in March 2000.



------------------------
William K. Medlin
Dev-plan associates
930 Kenneth Street
Moscow ID 83843
208/892-0148
dev-plan@moscow.com