Impasse over environmental issues likely at WTO meet

By C. Rammanohar Reddy

GENEVA, AUG. 2. A looming controversy on proposals for introducing environmental rules in trade has the potential of having the same deal-wrecking impact on the Doha Ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organisation that labour standards had on the 1999 Seattle conference. But the difference this time is that it is not a rich-poor divide but mainly the European Union, Switzerland, Norway and Japan versus the rest of the world.

Disputes over the application of environmental norms in trade are not new to the WTO; but while the organisation has seen a few high-profile cases, including the shrimp-turtle dispute in which India was a co-complainant against the U.S., this time formal proposals are being made for negotiation in the proposed new round of trade negotiations.

The first proposal is for allowing countries to control imports when food safety is involved, by invoking the ``precautionary principle'' - where there is a threat of irreversible environmental harm even if the scientific evidence is not certain. With consumers in Europe having definite negative views on GMO food, this move is seen as an attempt to give Governments the power to monitor trade in such products. But it is strongly opposed by the U.S. and the Cairns group of agricultural exporting nations, who naturally see it as disguised protectionism and argue that the grounds for application of the precautionary principle are already spelt out in the WTO agreement on sanitary and phytosanitary measures.

At this point, the E.U. is not talking of new negotiations only for a substantive interpretation of past rulings in WTO disputes; but everyone knows this is the first step towards negotiation of more liberal rules on the WTO books.

Eco-labelling - the certification that products are manufactured in an environmentally benign way - is the second area proposed by the E.U. for negotiations; though this one too is already covered in the WTO agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade. ``There has been a proliferation of private initiatives in eco-labelling. What we need is a transparent and WTO-compatible process that will give a reliable process of certification,'' says Mr. Kare Bryn, Norwegian Ambassador to the WTO.

While some developing country officials acknowledge that there is an intellectual case for WTO disciplines in eco- labelling, they express concern that a rush to negotiate could result in more harm than good to the process. There is a preference instead for certification that is born out of co- operation between producer- exporters and distributor-importers, as suggested recently by Malaysia.

Many observers see the E.U. position at the WTO on these environment/food safety issues (supported by countries like Japan and Switzerland which are also opposed to liberalisation of trade in farm products) as meant to assure domestic opinion that the WTO will not permit trade in unsafe food or products made by destroying the environment. ``There is a huge constituency out there for these proposals unlike for the E.U.'s demands on foreign investment and competition policies.

Besides, the European NGOs, already unhappy that labour standards are now on the backburner, are not going to allow the same thing to happen to environment. This makes the E.U. proposals a potentially explosive one,'' says Dr. Geoff Raby, Australia's Ambassador to the WTO.

While feelings run strong on both sides on these two proposals, there is another controversial suggestion, this time by the U.S., for the inclusion of a seemingly innocuous statement in the preamble to the Ministerial declaration in Doha which will refer to the freedom of countries to introduce the `highest environmental standards possible.'' The proposal, also meant to placate domestic environmental NGOs, would imply that Governments could depart from WTO rules when the situation demands. However, a trade official asks a question that will be at the heart of the controversy that is sure to develop: ``How can such departure from multilateral disciplines be permitted when it is a question of protecting turtles, but not from TRIPS where the health of human beings is involved?''

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : International
Previous : Pak. President vows to 'combat terrorism'
Next     : Lashkar to set up radio station