Nobody is “making” anyone “take” anything. If no single farmer or no single consumer in the EU WANTS GM products, then the WTO can not force a single farmer or single consumer in the EU to take GM products. The WTO has no armies. (This can be contrasted to the EU.)

If, on the other hand, farmers and consumers within EU countries WANT GM products, the WTO has ruled that, according to treaties EU countries signed, the EU can not block farmers and consumers who want GM products from getting them.

Why not support the freedom of farmers and consumers in the EU to get GM products, ****IF**** they want them?

If you want international treaties that help protect the environment or open up trade -based on good science- you have to take decisions that go against you.

A certain amount of responsibitlity must be with the consumer, let them vote with wallets and not buy the stuff.

BTW I think GM food is over engineered, much better to use practices that don’t degrade the environment than create a plant that can grow in salt affected ground or is resistant to braod swath herbicides.

The EU doesn’t want this stuff. Period. Why are we making them take it? And the argument above about ’semantics’ neglects the consideration that the EU is the voice of the majority.

Best,

D

http://www.wipo.int/about-ip/en/geographical_ind.html

The link explains that these indications are regulated mostly through national laws and relevant international agreements (TRIPS – Trade Related Aspects of International Property Rights is one such agreement that deals with this, at least in part)

I think Roger’s main criticism, the relative undemocratic nature of the ruling (or at least his perception of the ruling as such) would be familiar to many critics of globalization (the current form, anyway). We have an unelected entity deciding how goods are to be regulated. Their primary (some would say only) concern is the health and welfare of the global economy. The philosophy behind the WTO’s idea of a healthy global economy requires free markets (the freer the better), anything else is either secondary or irrelevant.

Whether a scientific criteria is used to justify the WTO decision, I can certainly see how this would be interpreted as an imposition of values – a political decision.

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/7e3bb752-98db-11da-aa99-0000779e2340.html

First, let me dispense with your wider hypotheticals by noting that, to my knowledge, none of them have as yet been presented to the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body. (There is, in other words, no universal WTO standard applicable a priori to every hypothetical trade dispute. There are instead specific agreements included within the WTO regarding specific industries or trade matters.) The legitimacy of banning the importation of Genetically Modified Organisms, however, *has* been presented to that body, and there actually is an agreement already incorporated within the WTO specifically relevant to GMOs: The Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures.

A central holding of that Agreement, as interpreted by the WTO, is that signatories must base their national food safety standards on well-established *international* standards, measures and guidelines. (Standards outlined in such instruments as the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the International Office of Epizootics, and the International Plant Protection Convention.)

If any member state wishes to enforce a different standard than those already internationally recognized, the Agreement maintains that the member must support its novel standard with scientific evidence.

The 150 member states of the WTO are each voluntary signatories to The Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures. Each is bound by the Dispute Settlement Body’s interpretations of that Agreement. (In the case of your WMD hypothetical, I suspect that other formal treaties, including The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, would likely take precedence.)

Advocates of “the precautionary principle” have argued that the recent Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety somehow takes precedence over the WTO’s Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures. That Protocol, however, explicitly notes that its “precautionary” standards aren’t meant to conflict with any previous international treaty.

This is just “semantics”…but I think semantics are important. You write,

“Under this conetxt, which admittedly probably has more complexities than I am aware of, the EU has the right to ban GM foods.”

I forget where I read this (libertarian-oriented literature, I’m sure ), but someone made the point that governments don’t have “rights.” People have “rights.” Governments have “authorized powers.”

This reasoning follows from both the Declaration of Independence (a statement of ideals, not a legally binding document) AND the Constitution (which used to be a legally binding document, before the federal government stopped following it).

That is:

1) Individual people have rights. Those rights are endowed at birth (some witnesses say at conception) by their Creator(s). So people HAVE rights, regardless of whether or not governments protect those rights.

2) Governments have authorized powers. A legitimate purpose–or maybe the only legitimate purpose–of those authorized powers is to protect the rights of those individual people.

So I disagree that the EU has any “rights.” The EU is a government, so it has “authorized powers”…not “rights.”

And who gave the EU government its “authorized powers”? Well, one would hope it was The People of the EU. And what are those “authorized powers”? Well, if there was an EU constitution, presumably the powers would be ***enumerated*** (specifically listed) in that document.

But as I understand it, the authorized powers of the EU are contained in a bunch of treaties. To me, it sounds messy and prone to abuse. (But since our own government doesn’t follow its Constitution, I can’t claim our system is clearly better.)

ANYWAY, I don’t think you should use “rights” when referring to governments. (One reason I never refer to “states’ rights.”) You should use, “authorized powers.”

Now, does the EU have the “authorized power” to deny whether consumers within the EU can eat GM foods? Well, to answer that, you’d have to point to the document(s) that authorized that power.

You seem to be asserting that the EU government has the “right” (“authorized power”) to prevent consumers within the EU from obtaining GM foods, based on the premise that governments can do whatever they want, as long as they are democratically elected. But that’s not the Rule of Law. That’s the Rule of Men and Women. That’s tyranny. So unless you know specifically that there is some document that authorizes the EU government to block their consumers from getting GM foods, I don’t think you should automatically assume that the EU government has that authorized power, simply because it’s democratically elected.

Best wishes,
Mark