| WEEKLY WATCH number 155 (15/12/2005) | |
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from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor Dear all: That most unaccountable of organizations, the WTO, is rumoured to have ruled against the EU in its battle with the US over its right to refuse GMOs (see WTO). It looks as if, as so often in disputes involving government bodies and corporate interests, the EU has been fighting with one hand tied behind its back because of the EU Commission's consistent promotion of GM crops and foods. How could they, on one hand, bring forward the science suggesting that GM foods have shown negative health effects when, on the other hand, the EU Commission keeps ignoring the science and forcing through GM approvals against the wishes of member states? Meanwhile, India has done the sensible thing and is introducing GM labeling (ASIA), and a French court has acquitted 49 GM crop-trashers on the grounds that they were preventing contamination by potentially dangerous genetic material (EUROPE). Claire [email protected] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- WTO ------------------------------------------------------------------------- GM Watch is asking for your support as we prepare to celebrate 7 years of running our e-mail lists - first launched in January 1999. In order to sustain and extend what we are doing, we need financial donations and the help of people with the language skills to translate our roundups of all the latest news and research so that they reach the widest possible readership. Details of how to help: + WTO RULES AGAINST EU IN GMO CASE The WTO is due to issue its draft final report on the GM trade dispute lead by the US against Europe on 5 January 2006. Environmental campaigners have delivered a petition to the WTO signed by more than 135,000 people from 100 countries and by 740 organisations representing 60 million people, demanding the WTO allows European countries to protect their environment, consumers and farming from the risks posed by GM foods. The US argued heavily for science to be kept out of the dispute, stating that it was a trade complaint and the safety of GM foods was not at stake. However the WTO panel disagreed and set up a group of scientists to examine the facts and report on whether there were scientific grounds for Europe taking such a position. The scientists' report has not been made public. The European Commission has argued in the WTO that the science on GMOs is constantly evolving and that "new risk considerations sometimes arise spontaneously and change the scope of the risk assessment". They also argue that there are "legitimate scientific concerns" about the use of antibiotic resistant genes and secondary effects of GM crops on beneficial insects. Peter Mandelson, the EU's trade chief, triggered a row when he branded the US food aid programme, which delivers American produce to needy countries, as "fake" aid designed to help US farmers rather than the world's poor. He told delegates from developing countries : "The large, structured US programme of 'in kind' food aid is designed in reality to give support to US agricultural producers. It distorts trade and depresses local production. Statistics show that this aid is directly related to the price shifts for the commodities concerned on the US market." The current head of the WTO, Pascal Lamy, has alos spoken out on this issue in the past. During the Zambian food aid crisis over the US's dumping of GM grain, the EU's then Trade Commissioner accused the US of using its foreign aid programme as a means to "dispose of its genetically modified crop surpluses. The simple solution is for the US to behave as a real aid donor," he said. Lamy also hit out in an interview with Newsweek: "Zambia is a sovereign country and makes its own decisions. Zambians do not need to be heroic to assert their sovereignty... GM-free supplies are available in surplus in southern Africa. Europe's policy is to provide food aid procured in the region, rather than as a means of disposing of domestic stocks." |
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