[CTC] Free trade in frankenfish? Trans Atlantic free trade agreement could be a monster

[Arthur Stamoulis]

Friends of the Earth, U.S.  Blog

Free trade in frankenfish? Trans Atlantic free trade agreement could  
be a monster

Posted Apr. 26, 2013 / Posted by: Bill Waren

Link: http://www.foe.org/news/blog/2013-04-free-trade-in-frankenfish-trans-atlantic-free-trade




“Frankenfish is a 2004 monster movie dealing with genetically  
engineered fish in the bayou.”

    Wikipedia

“European Union… measures governing the importation and use of GE  
(genetically engineered0 products have resulted in substantial  
barriers to trade.”

    U.S. Trade Representative, 2013 report on sanitary measures

  In his 2013 State of the Union message, President Obama announced  
that the U.S. would move forward on negotiations with the European  
Union for the Trans Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, a trade  
deal that raises a raft of serious environmental concerns.

Based on the model of past U.S. trade agreements, statements by  
officials, and published documents including a U.S.-E.U. “High Level  
Working Group” reportoutlining the objectives for negotiations, it  
appears that the goal is to grant transnational corporations and  
governments expanded “rights” under the Trans Atlantic agreement to  
challenge government regulations before international tribunals. In  
its short report, the working group proposes a deal that would focus  
on environmental and other regulations alleged to interfere with free  
market efficiency, rather than traditional trade issues such as  
lowering tariffs. The HLWG report explicitly recommends going beyond  
even World Trade Organization standards in the areas of intellectual  
property rights, sanitary measures, and so-called “technical barriers  
to trade” that already vitiate environmental protections.

The U.S. Trade Representative is widely expected to use U.S.-E.U.  
negotiations to subvert regulations on genetically engineered  
products, food safety, and synthetic biology, among many others. At  
the same time, USTR is expected to push for provisions in the  
agreement that  encourage patents on human, plant and animal genes and  
use of cost-benefit analysis rather than the precautionary principle  
when setting environmental regulatory standards.

GE products: intellectual property and sanitary measures provisions

If based on the HLWG report, this Trans Atlantic free trade agreement  
(TAFTA) could open the door wide for gene patents, as well as trade in  
genetically engineered food and even products based on synthetic  
biology. This could threaten ecosystems, public health, and the  
livelihoods of small farmers, among other unintended and even  
frightening consequences.

The history of successful U.S. suits in the WTO challenging European  
policies on genetically engineered organisms and food safety under the  
sanitary measures agreement should be a warning. The working group’s  
report suggests establishing an even more rigorous review of sanitary  
measures in TAFTA than that currently employed under WTO rules. This  
could put GE   and food safety regulations at even greater risk in  
TAFTA litigation.

Friends of the Earth believes that governments on both sides of the  
Atlantic should have more, not less freedom to regulate in this area.  
Genetic engineering of commercial products presents many known and  
more suspected risks to people and nature. GE products should be  
subject to government regulation based on the precautionary principle:  
in other words, the burden of proof for demonstrating a new product or  
technology’s safety should fall on those who would introduce it into  
the marketplace.

Food safety: sanitary measures provisions

Similarly, Friends of the Earth is concerned about how other food  
safety disputes would be treated under a WTO-plus regime for sanitary  
measures. Among the many areas of concern are EU food safety measures  
targeted as trade barriers in a 2013 USTR report, including  
restrictions on imports of beef treated with growth hormones, chicken  
washed in chlorine, and meat produced with growth stimulants  
(rectopamine). Another 2013 report also targets France in particular  
for its 2012 ban on use of materials produced using BPA in contact  
surfaces for food for infants and pregnant women.  .

Cost-benefit analysis & the precautionary principle: regulatory  
coherence provisions

The HLWG report calls for the U.S.-E.U. deal to include a cross- 
cutting discipline on regulatory coherence “for the development and  
implementation of efficient, cost-effective, and more compatible  
regulations for goods and services.”  In all probability, this  
recommendation by the HLWG contemplates something similar to the draft  
regulatory coherence chapter of the Trans Pacific Partnership  
agreement, a proposal that greatly concerns Friends of the Earth.

The leaked draft of the regulatory coherence chapter of the Trans  
Pacific Partnership trade agreement encourages countries joining the  
pact to conduct regulatory impact assessments or RIAs when developing  
regulations, including environmental measures, which have more than a  
minimal cost burden on business and the economy.  Cost-benefit  
analysis to determine the net benefit of environmental regulations,  
specifically, is encouraged.

In the view of Friends of the Earth the cost of environmental and  
other government regulations should not be ignored, but it ought to be  
looked at with a wider perspective.  Calculations of seemingly  
definitive “ratios of benefit to costs” should be considered with  
balanced skepticism.  Identifying and quantifying the costs of  
environmental regulation can be inflated by assumptions, bias of the  
analyst, and flaws in data gathering. Quantifying the benefits of  
environmental regulation can be difficult, for example because public  
health data is not as comprehensively collected as economic data.  Or,  
it can be impossible: an attempt to attribute a price to the intrinsic  
value of human life, living things and nature itself.  In our view,  
cost-benefit analysis, in many circumstances, can be at odds with a  
fundamental principle of environmental regulation: application of the  
precautionary principle in the face of an immeasurable environmental  
risk and inescapably uncertain outcomes.

An excellent example of an environmental issue involving uncertain  
outcomes that requires application of the precautionary principle, not  
cost-benefit analysis, isregulation of synthetic biology. While  
genetic engineering involves the exchange of genes between species,  
synthetic biology involves artificially creating new genetic code and  
inserting it into organisms. Synthetic organisms self-replicate. No  
one knows how they will interact with naturally occurring organisms or  
the consequences for the ecosystem as a whole.  Standard forms of risk  
assessment and cost-benefit analyses used by current biotechnology  
regulatory approaches are inadequate to guarantee protection of the  
public and the environment.

Friends of the Earth concerns about TAFTA, more generally

The issues discussed in this first blog post regarding  GE products,  
gene patents, food safety, and synthetic biology are only a few of the  
environmental concerns raised by TAFTA negotiations. Follow-up blog  
posts will detail many other threats.  Friends of the Earth is in the  
process of producing a comprehensive analysis of issues raised by the  
launch of TAFTA negotiations, and we will report to you, our readers,  
in blog posts as we finalize our research findings.  To give you a  
preview of the breadth of environmental issues raised by these  
negotiations, here are several thematic concerns that Friends of the  
Earth has about upcoming TAFTA negotiations.  In our view:

Environment and labor obligations in TAFTA should be treated in a  
similar manner to commercial obligations: they should be enforceable  
through dispute resolution.
  In response to climate change, TAFTA should provide governments with  
policy space, free from the threat of trade litigation, to adopt  
climate change measures, such as a carbon tax, other tax measures and  
subsidies to encourage renewable energy, carbon and pollution  
regulations, and energy efficiency standards, among others.
TAFTA should not facilitate the “commoditization of the commons” --  
our natural resources, water, and animal, plant and human genes.
TAFTA should not drive a harmonization down to the lowest common  
regulatory denominator, especially with respect to regulation of    
toxic chemicals, food safety, and GE organisms.
Investment disputes, such those related to mining, oil production,  
water, and energy services,  should be adjudicated not before arbitral  
tribunals biased in favor of multinational corporations,  but before  
domestic courts and administrative bodies.
TAFTA should not be negotiated in secret. A public debate will either  
make it a better agreement or sink a bad deal.


  
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