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The United States, Canada, Argentina and Egypt, supported by nine other countries, will file a World Trade Organization complaint in hopes of getting the European Union to lift its five-year moratorium on new gene-spliced, or genetically modified (GM), products, US officials have announced.
 
Robert Zoellick, the US Trade Representative, complained that the European ban was stifling biotechnology around the world and fueling "fabricated fears stoked by irresponsible rhetoric about food safety." "We've waited patiently for five years for the EU to follow the WTO rules and the recommendations of the European Commission," which would permit the EU to resume approval of new products, he said.
 
Science and common sense favor the US position on the EU's moratorium.

Even the EU acknowledges that the ban is insupportable legally and scientifically. Three years ago, Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrom called it "illegal and not justified," and Health Commissioner David Byrne has agreed. In response to fear mongering in the late 1990s by countries like France, Germany, and Italy, the commission performed an exhaustive, six-year study of the safety of gene-spliced foods, which concluded that they are actually safer and more environmentally friendly than traditional crops.

But even if the United States and its allies prevail at the WTO on the issue of the ban on new approvals, it is unlikely that the EU would revise the unscientific and discriminatory regulatory policies that underlie the moratorium; they are too entrenched, and have fomented too much public fear and antagonism towards gene-spliced foods.
 
The best-case scenario is probably that the WTO would find in favor of the United States, and the EU would agree to lift the moratorium on approvals. But even that outcome would be of only marginal benefit, leaving in place the EU's unnecessary and excessive regulatory requirements for gene-spliced crops and food. Plant breeders and farmers in exporting countries, including the United States, would still be reluctant to commercialize any new variety not approved in the EU.
 
Underscoring this point, in March the American Soybean Association, which represents the nation's soybean farmers, called in testimony before the House Committee on Agriculture for the administration to file WTO complaints against the EU's regulations. The ASA noted that although the EU did approve Roundup Ready® soybeans in 1996, the EU's mandatory "labeling" law requires food manufacturers to attach a stigmatizing "GMO [Genetically Modified Organisms] label" on any food products containing more than one percent of Roundup Readyâ soybeans.

This has caused a large number of food manufacturers who market their products in the EU to abandon US-origin commodity soy protein as an ingredient, or to reformulate their products to exclude all soy ingredients. Thus, we now permit the most averse and protectionist player in the game to set the rules on international trade.
The most likely outcome of the US filing is that the EU would simply ignore a WTO ruling that the EU's moratorium on new gene-spliced product approvals is illegal.
 
The WTO has no real enforcement power, but relies on member nations to accept its decisions voluntarily. The WTO could, however, authorize the United States and the other complainants to establish countervailing import tariffs on goods from the transgressor nations in an amount equal to the potential sales revenue lost by the exporters. For example, following an adverse ruling from the WTO on a case that involved the importation of American and Canadian beef from cattle given certain hormones, the European Union accepted the countervailing tariffs rather than change its policy. A successful WTO challenge to the EU's biotechnology policies would likely have a similar result.
 
No outcome that permits restriction of trade is desirable, but the imposition of punitive compensatory tariffs would be an acceptable result if it took into account both the direct and indirect losses to American seed producers, farmers and food processors, which have mounted into the billions of dollars. A ruling in favor of the United States and its allies would send a message to the world that the EU's arbitrary, scientifically indefensible and protectionist policies are an unacceptable barrier to trade.

Even before this battle can be joined, however, Zoellick and US trade interests are being outflanked by European and American - yes, American - bureaucrats at the deliberations of the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the food standards program of the United Nations, whose ongoing task force on gene-spliced foods is nearing the completion of preposterously unscientific regulations that will provide cover for those who wish to regulate agricultural biotechnology into oblivion.
 
During three years of negotiations by the task force, the Europeans and NGOs (which are permitted full participation) have led the assault on technological innovation and free trade. The participants - including the US delegation, headed by senior FDA food regulator Robert Lake - have willfully ignored scientific principles and the basic axiom that the degree of regulatory scrutiny should be proportionate to risk. They have also disregarded the scientific consensus that gene-splicing is an extension, or refinement, of older, traditional techniques of genetic modification, and that it does not warrant discriminatory, excessive regulation. They have overlooked the fact that during a decade of widespread use, the performance of gene-spliced crops has been spectacular, with farmers enjoying increased yields, decreased costs of agricultural chemicals, and lower occupational exposures to pesticides.

The environmental benefits likewise have been stunning, with less chemical runoff into waterways and greater availability of no-till farming techniques that reduce soil erosion.
 
The task force has deliberately circumscribed only gene-spliced foods for compulsory case by case "pre-market safety assessment of . . . both intended and unintended effects, identifying new or altered hazards and identifying changes relevant to human health."
 
These requirements are more appropriate to potentially dangerous prescription drugs and pesticides than to improved varieties of tomatoes, potatoes, and strawberries. No food modified by less precise, less predictable traditional techniques - that is to say, virtually the entire diet of Europeans and Americans - could (or should) meet these standards. The Codex requirements for gene-spliced foods, which are both sweeping and Draconian, will vastly increase the development costs of these products, drastically impair their competitiveness in the marketplace, and limit their use.
 
Derailing the development of gene-spliced foods is exactly the agenda of many of those on the task force. For the Europeans, the reason is clear: protectionism, pure and simple. As Wellesley College political scientist Robert Paarlberg has observed, the products of agricultural biotechnology have been "developed mostly in U.S. laboratories, widely adopted by U.S. farmers, and pushed out onto the world market by U.S. companies (emphasis in original)."
 
In other words, agricultural biotechnology is an icon of American technological success and supremacy, so naturally US trading partners intend to punish it.
 
Less obvious is why American regulators have been complicit. Milton Friedman explained it with the observation that you can usually rely on individuals and institutions (including regulatory agencies) to act in their own self-interest. And that self-interest for regulators lies in expanded responsibilities and larger budgets and bureaucratic empires.

The FDA is in the process of adopting regulations similar to those of its European counterparts, that focus not on risk, but only on those products made with the most precise and predictable techniques. The public interest be damned.

The prospect of unduly burdensome Codex standards for biotech foods is ominous - both for the prospects of the technology itself and for US hopes of WTO relief from protectionist European policies - because members of the WTO will, in principle, be required to abide by those standards. In other words, the standards will provide cover for unfair trade practices, because with these measures in place, a country that wishes to block trade in gene-spliced foods for any reason can defend against charges of unfair trade practices simply by remonstrating that it's deferring to Codex.

These unscientific standards will harm not only international trade, but also the natural environment and public health. The greatest threats to the planet's environment come from the world's burgeoning population and its demands for water and for ever more land to be brought into food production. Yet an important answer - the development of higher-yielding, drought-resistant plant varieties that grow with less agricultural chemicals - will be blocked by illogical, discriminatory, hugely expensive regulation.
 
Regulation should focus on real risks and should not be triggered by the use of one technique or another. If the current Codex approach is adopted, the costs of biotechnology R&D; will skyrocket, and there will be essentially irreversible constraints on innovation and trade. Even the most favorable ruling from the WTO would be little more than a Pyrrhic victory.
 
Zoellick and the Bush administration are right-minded to lead the charge against illegal restraint of international trade, but they must recognize that our enemies lie not only across the pond, but inside the Beltway.

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John Fund, Wall Street Journal, 09/17/06