Action Briefing June 2004 - July 2004
	The Newsletter of Birmingham Friends of the Earth

Brum bites back in GM trade war

A George W Bush look-a-like dressed in a waiter's outfit (right) was spotted serving up a sinister concoction to passing shoppers in New Street on Saturday 17th April, while Birmingham Friends of the Earth campaigners encouraged the public to 'bite back' against a US attempt to force genetically modified (GM) crops and food into Europe through the World Trade Organisation.

In 1998, EU Environment Ministers agreed that the current GM legislation was inadequate to protect the environment so they agreed to strengthen the existing EU Directive on GM (Directive 90/220). Several member states declared that they would not approve new GM crops or products derived from them until the new Directive was in force and proper labelling and traceability rules had been incorporated.

Between them, these countries had enough votes to block any new applications for GM crops or products and since then none have been approved for commercial development in the EU. This is what is meant by the ‘de facto moratorium’. In addition, a number of EU countries have banned certain GM products which they considered to pose an undue risk to their environment or public health.

The storm gathers
Across the Atlantic, at a reasonably safe distance one assumes, the US system relies heavily on the biotech companies voluntarily supplying information on GM crops and food. Large government-funded campaigns have prevented the labelling of GM foods in any US State. With domestic pressure growing from its powerful farming lobby and corporate heavyweights like Monsanto (the world’s biggest seller of GM products), the US Government rounded up the other GM exporting nations and threw down the gauntlet to Europe.

On May 13th 2003 a US-led coalition including Canada, Argentina and Egypt, made a formal complaint to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), arguing that the EU’s de facto GM moratorium constituted an illegal barrier to trade under the WTO's arcane trade rules.

The WTO is a supra-national body in charge of negotiating and administering the implementation of global trade agreements, and ruling over trade disputes between countries. What makes it so strong is its dispute settlement body. The WTO has the power to order countries to accept its verdicts or face heavy financial penalties as compensation to the complainant countries. Trade disputes are not open to the public and the final ruling is decided by a panel of just three to five people hand-picked by the WTO and the participating countries.

After the first stage of the process (a formal consultation period to try and resolve the dispute) was completed, the US, Canada and Argentina requested to establish a dispute settlement panel on 29th August 2003. Australia, Brazil, Chile, China, Mexico and several Central American countries have also asked to participate in the legal proceedings as third parties.

The coalition began to look shaky when Egypt pulled out altogether, citing “the need to preserve adequate and effective consumer and environmental protection.” As the only African country in the coalition, Egypt’s decision was a major blow to the US, which reportedly retaliated by tearing up a planned free trade agreement with Egypt.

Things began to get farcical when the first round of names put forward for the panel was rejected by all parties, at least partly because the nominees had biotech business backgrounds. Once the panellists have been chosen (if parties cannot agree on panellists, they are chosen by the WTO), they will agree on a timetable. And, yup, you’ve guessed it, neither the names of the panellists nor the agreed timetable will be made public.

The US action was timely considering the coming into force of the UN Biosafety Protocol, a new international environmental agreement providing a regulatory framework for the international trade in GM. Significantly, the Protocol will allow countries to take a precautionary approach towards GM technology. By starting its trade war on the eve of this new agreement the US is sending a warning to the rest of the world: do not ban or limit GM foods and crops.

Beware of Americans bearing Aid
President Bush, of course, prefers to play the world hunger card and accuse Europeans of impeding efforts to feed the Third World. Allegedly, Europe’s stance on GM has led to developing countries in turn refusing to accept US food aid because of its GM content. Could Bush’s stance have anything to do with the fact that food aid is a key market for US farmers who use it to sell their surpluses?

Many developing countries have concerns about GM crops regardless of what goes on in Europe. The Director of Ethiopia's Environment Protection Agency called the US's complaint a threat to African food sovereignty and said, “we resent the way that the stereotyped image of the hungry in developing countries has been used to force a style of agriculture that will only exacerbate problems of hunger and poverty.”

People go hungry mainly as a result of poverty: lack of infrastructure means crops can’t get to markets; lack of money means people can’t afford food or the land to grow it on. If Bush and his biotech backers were seriously concerned about hunger in developing countries, they would promote land reforms to secure access to land for poor people, helping to make them self-sufficient. But, of course, that would mean the biotech companies would have no guaranteed market for their patented GM seed, seed that must be purchased anew every year instead of being saved from each harvest for replanting.

The European Commission (EC) are preparing their submission to the WTO panel but it is unclear when the panel will make its ruling on the dispute, with some saying it won’t be on the table before the end of 2004. A ruling against Europe would undermine the EU’s precautionary approach to GM and set a bad precedent of WTO rules superseding multilateral environmental agreements. Worse still, a verdict in favour of the US would force Europe to accept more GM crops and food or face economic sanctions worth hundreds of millions of US dollars. In a previous case, where the WTO ruled that the EU had to accept hormone-treated beef from the US, we were hit by sanctions worth $116.8 million a year. The US imposed 100% tariffs on EU products such as French mustard and Roquefort cheese.

Biting back against the GM bullies
In spite of all this secrecy and intimidation, some of us still believe that people have a right to be involved in decisions about their food, health, environment and way of life. The ‘Bite Back’ campaign was launched last September by Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) as part of a broad alliance of civil society groups representing consumers, environmentalists, farmers, trade unionists and developing countries. They pledged to create an unprecedented public protest against the USA's bullying tactics by collecting legal Citizens’ Objections to the complaint from all 146 WTO member countries.

In a spectacular action on 25th May (the official deadline for WTO members to submit evidence in the case), FoEI declared a “bio-hazard” area around the WTO’s Geneva HQ and delivered a petition signed by more than 100,000 people from 91 countries and more than 544 organizations representing 48 million people.

You can still sign the Citizens’ Objection on-line at www.bite-back.org or www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/global_trade/press_for_change/bite_back/. Paper copies of the Objection can be obtained from Birmingham Friends of the Earth on 0121 632 6909. For more info visit www.foeeurope.org/biteback/index.htm

James Botham