WTO
Law and Science,
with
emphasis on the case of trade regulation of GM products
See also the Codex Alimentarius
section
The
Biosafety Protocol has made a
significant contribution to the development of Public International Law
primarily because it has operationalized, more than any previous international
agreement, the Precautionary Principle which at the multilateral level finds its
root in Principle 15 of in the 1992 Rio Declaration. The relationship between
the Protocol and the WTO, especially the SPS, the TBT and the GATT 1994 Agreements, is the core
issue here and the subject of an intensive debate and scientific
literature in
trade law and in international environmental law. This section explores these
exceedingly complex issues in WTO law but also wider societal ramifications
and debates.
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The issue of GM
regulation and the WTO has been at the center of a three year
(2001-04)
research project at the University of Geneva's Law Faculty
[also available in a somewhat different
French version] (Anne Petitpierre et al.). Financed by the Swiss National
Science Foundation, it concludes that the narrow science-based
approach essentially limited to risk assessment stipulated under
WTO law is more and more difficult to maintain in view of the
more comprehensive methodologies of the Biosafety Protocol
and the Codex Alimentarius which in addition to science and risk
assessment also emphasize risk management, risk communication,
and precautionary trade measures under certain conditions. |
The relationship between the
WTO and the Biosafety Protocol is by no means determined, is is
evolving constantly through the WTO's jurisprudence and other decisions, but
also through continuing developments in those questions of the Protocol
whose negotiations have not been concluded yet, especially labelling,
liability & redress, and compliance. Furthermore, scientific expertise in
the science-technology-law interface plays a crucial role in the functioning
of the WTO's Dispute Settlement Body in such disputes, and through it in the
evolution of the relations between the Biosafety Protocol and the WTO.
Unfortunately, this role is exercised under rules and procedures which
are very opaque. The articles in this section help to shed some light on
these questions.
The principles, rules,
standards and procedures which determine the outcome of GM-related and other biosafety
disputes represent some of the most important determinants of the dynamics
of the wider trade & environment domain, in fact the biosafety issue
serves as a particularly illustrative and relevant case study of the
relationship between economic globalization and threats to the global ecosystem.
See also the
Codex Alimentarius page of this site for a
discussion of related issues with regard to environment-related food safety
and international trade. Finally, we must not forget the other side of the
trade and environment equation as it relates to agrobiodiversity, namely the
imposition of Intellectual Property Rights on Plants and microorganisms which is the subject of
the Plant Genetic Resources page.
