Food Safety or Food Fight: Administrative Impact on Trade Policies Relating to Genetically Modified Organisms

Abstract

By comparing US, Canadian, and EC regulatory regimes, this paper examines the impact of each government’s regulatory administrative structures on GMO trade policies. Although the Office of the United States Trade Representative, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, and Europe’s Directorate-General For Trade have primary responsibility for developing and implementing trade policies, the scope of this paper is limited to exploring the respective regulatory regimes. This introductory section of the paper discusses the background and history of GMOs along with the health and safety concerns raised by the introduction of GMOs into the environment. The following three sections present an overview of the regulatory regimes in the US, Canada, and the EC respectively. Section V then discusses the relevant WTO disputes involving the US, Canada, and the EC. A comparative analysis of the regulatory regimes in the context of the trade disputes is presented in Section VI. Section VII concludes the paper with a discussion of risk and recommendation that substantial equivalence doctrine expand to include novel processes.