Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
WTO system of adjudication tends to perform better - in terms of real economic out-
comes, rather than legal verdicts - when dealing with claims of 'conventional' protection-
ism (e.g. discriminatory tari
s, taxation or subsidies) than with claims concerning
environment, health and safety regulation. The only other WTO dispute resembling the
GMO con
ff
,
2005; Kelemen, 2001). In that case the WTO decided in 1998/9 that the EU was in viola-
tion of global trade law. But instead of changing its regulation on growth hormones, the
EU chose to subject itself to punitive tari
fl
ict is the EU-US dispute over growth hormones in beef production (Cadu
ff
s by the USA and Canada (since 1999) in the
order of US$100 million p.a. It is very likely that the EU would behave similarly should
the plainti
ff
s in the GMO case seek and obtain WTO approval for punitive measures. Even
worse, the value (in monetary terms) of such measures is likely to be higher than in the beef
hormones case (the costs imposed by the EU's GMO policies on foreign producers are
higher) and may thus cause all sorts of nasty side-e
ff
ects in EU-US trade relations.
As shown in this chapter, escalation of the GMO dispute in the WTO will not generate
a solution that helps producers in plainti
ff
countries. 'Out-of-court' solutions may in fact
be more useful in this and other, similar, cases. Such a solution in the GMO case will prob-
ably have to involve some sort of labeling of GM products (see Weirich, 2007). While solu-
tions outside the WTO are obviously not ideal, they should be viewed in perspective. As
noted above, only a tiny fraction of all country pairs (country dyads per year) ever get
involved in a WTO dispute. And the large majority of the more than 300 disputes taken
to the WTO since 1995 were resolved quite e
ff
ict
were dealt with outside the WTO, this would not call into question the very positive
overall record of the WTO adjudication system. Rather, it would protect the WTO system
from problems it cannot e
ff
ectively. If cases such as the GMO con
fl
ff
ectively solve.
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