Bridges Trade BioRes • Volume 5 • Number 11 • 9th June 2005
MOP-2: DIVISIONS OVER LABELLING PROVE INSURMOUNTABLE AT BIOSAFETY MEET
MOP-2: DIVISIONS OVER LABELLING PROVE INSURMOUNTABLE AT BIOSAFETY MEET
After long and difficult negotiations, talks on documentation requirements for shipments of living modified organisms for use as food or feed, or for processing (LMO-FFPs) finally broke down on the last day of the 2nd Meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (MOP-2), gathering from 30 May to 3 June in Montreal, Canada. Concerns over impacts of such requirements on international trade lay at the heart of the more hard-line positions. Civil society groups sharply criticised New Zealand and Brazil for what they saw as an obstructive and inflexible stance.
Disagreement over "may contain" language
Parties were mandated to finalise the documentation requirements for LMO commodities under Article 18.2(a) within two years of the Protocol’s entry into force, thus effectively at MOP-2 (see Bridges Trade BioRes, 27 May 2005). The Protocol currently requires LMO-FFPs to only be labelled as "may contain" LMOs. Mirroring debates during the Protocol’s negotiations, it was again the use of "may" that deeply divided Parties. Several late-night sessions and a last-ditch attempt by Switzerland to put forward a compromise text on the final day failed to bridge the differences between the Parties and the decision was postponed to MOP-3.
The African countries, led by Ethiopia, fought hard to eliminate the "may contain" language, insisting that any shipment should be clearly labelled as "contains" LMOs and list all the LMOs that are or may be contained. Given the limited regulatory and monitoring capacities in many African countries, they would like to see the onus of assessing the LMO content of a shipment placed on the exporter.
The EU took a somewhat more flexible stance on the "may contain" language, accepting its use provided that a clear specification of the LMOs that may be contained in the shipment was included. However, they insisted on references to say that thresholds may be adopted on a national basis for the adventitious (that is, accidental) or technically unavoidable presence of LMOs (such thresholds are already in place in the EU under their traceability and labelling regulations).
The strongest resistance to these proposals came from New Zealand and Brazil, and to a lesser extent from Peru. They stressed that the trigger for documentation requirements should be the intended content of the shipment rather than the content itself, which would exclude adventitious presence. Brazil, a staunch proponent of agricultural trade liberalisation in the WTO, has long been struggling with illegal plantings of LMOs in the country. While New Zealand does not export any LMOs at present, they also sought to defend their economic interests as an agricultural exporter (and a member of the Cairns Group in the WTO).
Widespread disappointment
Many delegates expressed their disappointment with the failure to reach agreement. During the final Plenary, Tewolde Egziabher of Ethiopia invited developing country delegates to not give into the pressures "that want to cause global genetic pollution and escape unnoticed and unscathed". "Let us go back to our respective countries and thwart their design through national legislation," he urged. The EU lamented that proposals had been rejected without explanations on why they were unacceptable, and feared that the failure may have negative impacts on the ability to achieve the objectives of the Protocol.
Brazil also expressed their regret at the lack of agreement, but felt that good progress had been made that could be built on at MOP-3. They would like to see a realistic, step-by-step approach, taking into account the wide variety of views. New Zealand rejected accusations that they were undermining the Biosafety Protocol. Environment Minister Marian Hobbs stressed the need for a labelling regime that was realistic and did not impose an unreasonable burden on exporters.
Civil society groups squarely laid the blame for the failure on the shoulders of Brazil and New Zealand. "The actions of Brazil and New Zealand are shameless," said Doreen Stabinsky of Greenpeace. "They have prevented the vast majority from bringing in rules that will protect the environment," she added. Juan Lopez, GM Coordinator of Friends of the Earth International accused the two countries of "hypocrisy and untruthfulness" and as serving the interests of the biotechnology industry and biotech exporting non-Parties. However, he also pointed to the more than 100 countries that had expressed their commitment to implementing strong requirements.
Some achievements
Despite this setback, Parties managed to finalise a number of important decisions, including on public awareness, capacity building, the Biosafety Clearing House and risk assessment. On documentation requirements for LMOs for contained use under Article 18.2(b) and for intentional introduction into the environment under Article 18.2(c), Parties simply decided to consider the rules as part of the mandated review of the Protocol’s implementation five years after entry into force, but left the option open to discuss the use of a stand-alone document at MOP-3.
While the rules of procedure for the Compliance Committee — which is charged with promoting compliance and addressing cases of non-compliance — were adopted at MOP-2, one bracket was left in the text after Parties failed to agree on the voting rules. Despite intense informal negotiations throughout the meeting, Panama and New Zealand in the end opposed the two-thirds majority decision-making (in cases where Committee members were unable to reach than consensus).
MOP-3 will be held in Curitiba, Brazil, from 13-17 March 2006, back-to-back with the 8th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity.
Additional Resources
MOP-2 documents: http://www.biodiv.org/doc/meeting.aspx?mtg=MOP-02
Decisions will be available shortly at http://www.biodiv.org/biosafety/cop-mop/search.aspx?menu=mop1
For daily coverage of MOP-2, see IISD Linkages, http://www.iisd.ca/biodiv/bs-copmop2.
ICTSD reporting; ENB Summary, Vol. 9 No. 320, 6 June 2005; "Greens and NGOs distort NZ approach," NEW ZEALAND GOVERNMENT PRESS RELEASE, 3 June 2005.