Bridges Trade BioRes • Volume 6 • Number 9 • 19th May 2006
CODEX DISCUSSIONS ON BIOTECH LABELLING SURVIVE CHALLENGE
CODEX DISCUSSIONS ON BIOTECH LABELLING SURVIVE CHALLENGE
Participants at the 1-5 May meeting of the Codex Committee on Food Labelling (CCFL) in Ottawa, Canada, decided to give negotiations on Draft Guidelines for the labelling of biotech food and food ingredients another chance before reconsidering a proposal to suspend the stalled negotiations. Although major biotech producers argued that talks should be discontinued, partially owing to their potential implications on international trade flows and the implementation of WTO rules, several other countries continued to support the development of standards to provide guidance to governments in establishing regulations in this area. In their final decision, delegates agreed to hold a working group meeting in January 2007 to try to bridge the gap in positions.
At the last Codex meeting on the Guidelines in May 2005, parties agreed to return them for redrafting by an electronic working group led by Canada (see Bridges Trade BioRes, 13 May 2005). The reconstructed draft Guidelines include mandatory provisions for health and safety-related labelling and optional provisions for ‘method of production’ labelling, as per the mandate of the group. Canada, however, noted that the group, while submitting the draft to the CCFL, had not been able to reach consensus on its content.
The debate continued at the CCFL meeting, with several countries including Mexico, Argentina and the US stressing the importance of the issue in any potential WTO dispute on labelling of biotech products. Mexico has suggested that any future WTO panel considering biotech labelling would use Codex standards as guidance in evaluating the WTO-compliance of national regulations and laws, but would not make any distinction between "mandatory" and "voluntary" provisions. As such, they suggested that if the "voluntary" provisions on method of production labelling in the Codex guidelines were adopted, the method of production labelling requirement would have the same legal status in WTO rules as other Codex standards. Saying they could not accept such a method-based standard — which is an example of the category of ‘process and production method’ that has attracted controversy at the WTO — as a standard for treating products in trade rules, Mexico, Argentina, the US and others resisted the inclusion of the "voluntary" provisions on method of production in the draft report from the electronic working group.
Given the lack of consensus, and the extensive difficulties the CCFL has had in moving the debate forward over the thirteen-year history of the negotiations, the Chair of the session, Anne MacKenzie, invited the countries to consider whether work should be discontinued or suspended at this stage. The US, Mexico, Argentina, the Philippines and several industry groups said they would like to suspend work because there was no prospect of further progress on international standards for biotech labelling in the near future. However, they supported further work on labelling provisions addressing health, food safety and nutrition aspects of biotech foods and noted that it could be possible to achieve consensus on labelling on these grounds. Similarly, Canada suggested that the CCFL could move forward by working on standards on areas where there is consensus, such as labelling for health and safety, leaving aside the issue of labelling for method of production for the time being.
On the other hand, Norway, Ghana, Senegal, Brazil, Morocco, India, Malaysia, Bhutan, Thailand, New Zealand, Switzerland, Japan, Indonesia, Tunisia, Burundi, Cameroon, Sudan and Paraguay supported further discussion of biotech labelling guidelines, arguing that the issue was important for consumers. They noted that many governments had established regulations in this area and an international standard on the issue would be helpful for both them and other countries considering legislation on biotech labelling. These countries recalled that the role of the Committee and the Codex Alimentarius Commission was to develop guidelines in order to provide guidance to governments, and that industry concerns and practices were not the question. These delegations therefore supported the establishment of a physical working group, as opposed to the previous electronic one, to continue discussing the issue roughly on the basis of the working group report.
Although the EU and Brazil said they were in favour of continuing work on biotech labelling guidelines, they did not support the result of the working group, particularly the separation of the document into mandatory and voluntary provisions. Although the EU had at the beginning of the negotiations implied it might be willing to suspend work on the principles for a few years, as per the demands for the US, a later offer from Norway to hold a meeting of a working group persuaded it that more talks were necessary.
In the final decision, the Committee agreed to hold a working group meeting in Norway in January 2007 which will be co-chaired by Norway, Argentina and Ghana. The working group will assist the CCFL with guidance relating to the further development of the draft guidelines. More particularly, the working group will gather information on countries’ experiences with mandatory and voluntary biotech labelling. Its report will be presented at the 35th session of the CCFL to be held from 30 April to 4 May 2007 in Ottawa, Canada. In her closing statement, the Chair noted that the key issue creating the impasse in negotiations was uncertainty and disagreement regarding the implications of the guidelines on trade flows and WTO rules, and expressed hope that the issue could be overcome.
Daily reporting by Consumers International from the CCFL meeting is available at http://www.consumersinternational.org
The meeting report will be available soon at http://www.codexalimentarius.net
ICTSD Reporting; "CCFL Daily Bulletins," CONSUMERS INTERNATIONAL, 1-5 May 2006; "UN Food Standards Body to Address GMO Labelling," CONSUMERS INTERNATIONAL, 3 May 2006.