Current Agriculture, Food & Resource Issues
G.E. Isaac
Implications and Conclusions
Clearly, international policy coordination in the area of agricultural biotechnology is a
major challenge given the presence of both multilateral (WTO v. Cartagena Protocol) and
regional (United States/Canada v. EU) regulatory differences. Several problems for the
agri-food sector arise.
First is the problem of forecasting which regulatory approach will prevail. On the one
hand, it is entirely reasonable to argue that the current EU/Cartagena Protocol support is
the result of a commercial lag (it is much easier to adopt a precautionary approach when
the GM crops are foreign and not domestic products), but when domestic products are
ready a more technologically progressive approach will emerge in the EU, which will then
influence the Cartagena Protocol. On the other hand, it is also entirely reasonable to argue
that the North American/WTO approach lacks sufficient social responsiveness and
therefore must change in the face of consumer concerns about environmental
sustainability and corporate control over the food supply. Therefore, given the remote
likelihood of convergence and the two plausible arguments presented above, it is difficult
to forecast which regulatory approach will prevail.
Second, in the meantime, fragmented international markets produce a decrease in the
economies of scale required to recoup the considerable research and development costs
incurred by producers of GMOs. Incongruent multilateral paradigms have the effect of
institutionalizing agricultural trade barriers whereby WTO-incompliant measures may in
fact be supported by the Cartagena Protocol. The result is incredibly unpredictable
international markets for Canadian agri-food exports that contain (or may contain) GMOs
- incisively illustrated by the current debates over the introduction of Monsanto’s Round-
Up-Ready wheat to the Canadian prairies.
Third is the more general problem of antagonism between agri-food trade and
environmental protection efforts perhaps producing an entrenched conflict whereby
MEAs are negotiated not as complementary agreements but rather as countervailing
forces to trade liberalization agreements. This case study of the WTO-Cartagena Protocol
relationship provides two general insights into international policy coordination between
trade agreements and MEAs. They can be in concert when (1) the MEA has a narrow
scope and (2) there exists a transatlantic consensus on the systemic regulatory principles
required to deal with the particular issue of concern to the drafters of the MEA. On the
other hand, they may be in conflict when the MEA has a broad scope and when there
exists transatlantic regulatory regionalism - precisely the characteristics present in the
WTO-Cartagena Protocol relationship.
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