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."
Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company
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