Dan, this article from the New York Times states:
Even without a treaty, countries can limit the import of genetically
engineered seeds or foods under their own law, subject to challenge
under world trading rules. Some countries, particularly in Europe, are
doing this. The treaty was mainly meant to help developing countries,
which now lack the expertise and the legislation to regulate
biotechnology.
The whole article:
February 25, 1999
U.S. and Allies Block Treaty on
Genetically Altered Goods
By ANDREW POLLACK
ARTAGENA, Colombia -- Attempts to forge the world's first
global treaty to regulate trade in genetically modified products
failed Wednesday morning when the United States and five other big
agricultural exporters rejected a proposal that had the support of the
rest of the roughly 130 nations.
The treaty would have required that exporters of genetically altered
plants, seeds or other organisms obtain approval in advance from the
importing nation. The talks broke down over the question of whether
this requirement would also apply to agricultural commodities like
wheat and corn.
Proponents of the treaty, especially European nations, have resisted
genetically modified products, worried that not enough is known about
the possible effects on human health and the environment. But
Washington and its allies have argued that such regulations would
entangle the world's food trade in red tape.
Some 25 percent to 45 percent of major crops grown in the United
States are genetically modified, and American negotiators feared the
proposal could block or stall more than $50 billion in annual farm
exports.
Bleary-eyed delegates from many nations, who have been negotiating
day and night for more than a week, expressed fury at the United
States, accusing it of intransigence and of putting the interests of its
world-leading farming and biotechnology industries above the
environment.
"It's five nations against the world," said Joseph M. Goto, the delegate
from Zimbabwe, although Washington and its allies actually total six.
Those in agreement with the United States are Canada, Australia,
Chile, Argentina and Uruguay. "There could be no greater injustice than
that," he said. The United States, he added, "is holding the world at
ransom."
The delegates agreed to suspend the talks and resume them no later
than May 2000. The United States had urged this, saying there were
still too many unresolved issues to allow a consensus to be achieved by
the deadline, which was Tuesday. In the meantime, individual countries,
particularly in Europe, will continue to limit the introduction of
genetically engineered agricultural products, including food.
"It would be much better to get a sound instrument a year hence than to
get a flawed instrument today," said Rafe Pomerance, deputy assistant
secretary of state for environment and development. But delegates from
some other nations feared the process would now lose momentum.
Even without a treaty, countries can limit the import of genetically
engineered seeds or foods under their own law, subject to challenge
under world trading rules. Some countries, particularly in Europe, are
doing this. The treaty was mainly meant to help developing countries,
which now lack the expertise and the legislation to regulate
biotechnology.
The United States has often taken a stance different from much of the
rest of the world on trade and environmental matters. It has not ratified
the Convention on Biological Diversity reached at the Earth Summit in
Rio de Janeiro in 1992 because some senators fear that American
interests would be jeopardized. The current talks on the so-called
Biosafety Protocol are an outgrowth of the biodiversity treaty.
The Biosafety Protocol would require exporters of genetically modified
organisms, such as seeds into which new traits had been added by
gene-splicing, to obtain prior approval from the importing country.
Such regulations are intended to allow countries to reduce the
ecological risks from introducing genetically altered plants, animals and
microorganisms into the environment.
Some scientists worry, for instance, that a gene conferring insect
resistance or drought tolerance on a crop could spread to weedy
relatives of that crop through cross-pollination, creating superweeds.
The main sticking point in the biosafety negotiations was whether the
requirement for advance approval by the importing nation should apply
to genetically altered agricultural commodities meant for eating or
processing, as opposed to planting.
Washington and its allies argued that such a requirement would not
protect biodiversity because commodities like corn and soy beans do
not enter the environment. Developing nations and the European Union
argued that commodities should be included because they have seeds
that can be planted.
Some developing nations even wanted the treaty to cover products
made from genetic engineering, such as cornflakes made from modified
corn, or blue jeans made from altered cotton, but this was dropped
from the final draft.
Another unresolved point of dispute was Washington's position that
World Trade Organization rules should take precedence over the
Biosafety Protocol, to prevent other nations from using biosafety as an
excuse to erect trade barriers. The developing nations and Europe
wanted the biosafety protocol to be equal to WTO rules or take
precedence over them.
Michael Williams, a spokesman for the United Nations Environment
Program, said this was the first environmental treaty he could remember
in at least 20 years in which an agreement was not reached by the
self-imposed deadline.
But officials here said the big stakes involved for industry made this
matter particularly difficult. "It's the first time that you have really
possibly a legally binding instrument dealing with trade and the
environment at the same time," said Veit Koester, a Danish
environmental official who chaired the working group that drew up the
draft of the treaty.
It perhaps complicated things that the industry involved was
biotechnology, in which the United States holds a firm lead. There have
been a rising number of disputes in recent years between developing
and developed nations over the control of genetic resources, the raw
material for biotechnology, which some analysts predict will be to the
next century what oil and metal were to this one.
The United States in one sense was in a strong negotiating position
because it did not want a treaty as badly as the developing nations and
therefore had less reason to compromise. Indeed, three years ago
Washington opposed starting the biosafety negotiations, and many
people at this meeting thought its real intention was to torpedo the
treaty.
"The last two years of negotiation have been a constant attempt to
delay, not negotiate, block," said Chee Yoke Ling of the Third World
Network, a Malaysia-based group working on environmental and
development issues. "They've always said, 'No, No, No,' and they
delayed and they diluted," she said.
Still, the United States could have been isolated. But it strengthened its
hand by aligning with Canada, Australia and three agricultural exporters
from the developing world: Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. Without the
support of such major exporters, any protocol would have been
meaningless.
"We were just too important, too big and maybe too thoughtful to be
ignored," Pomerance, the American negotiator, said.
He said Washington did make compromises. But he added: "There
were two compromises we were not prepared to make. One is to tie
up trade in the world's food supply. The second is to allow this regime,
without a lot of deliberation, to undermine the WTO trading regime."
Both the U.S. government and the biotechnology industry would have
something to gain from a treaty, were it not too onerous. A treaty could
have helped assuage public fears about biotechnology, which are much
greater elsewhere in the world than in the United States. And having a
unified global regulatory scheme would be easier for companies than
having each nation adopt its own rules.
The European Union has extensive regulations restricting the planting of
seeds as well as the importing of food that has been genetically altered.
Individual countries have enacted their own patchwork of rules.
"We would like to see a little more international harmonization of the
regulatory framework," said Willy De Greef, head of regulatory and
government affairs for Novartis Seeds AG, a division of the big Swiss
pharmaceutical company. "It creates a level playing field and clarity."
But the food and biotechnology industries and the U.S. government
argued that genetic engineering has not been shown to be a big threat to
biodiversity, especially compared with the destruction of tropical
forests to create farmland. They also said that environmental groups
and developing nations were trying to expand the treaty to deal with
human health and the social and economic effects of biotechnology.
"They are trying to get this protocol to develop issues that are really
important but not part of the protocol," said Joyce Groote, a
spokeswoman for Canada's biotechnology industry.
Environmental groups have complained in the last few days that the
protocol had been watered down to the point of near insignificance.
But in the end, some said that even the weakened treaty would have
been better than none.
"The environment's the loser, always," said Beth Burrows, president of
the Edmonds Institute, a nonprofit organization in Edmonds, Wash.,
which deals with biosafety issues. "There was no moral high ground
here," she added. "There was no scientific high ground here. It was just
cheap power politics."
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