Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 13 • Number 9 • 11th March 2009
Canada Threatens WTO Suit as EU Edges toward Seal Ban
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A committee of European lawmakers voted last week to ban all seal imports into the EU on the grounds that the hunt is inhumane, provoking a strong reaction from the Canadian government, which maintains that such a ban would cripple a key domestic industry.
“We have told [the EU] repeatedly that we will exercise all our options, Canadian fisheries minister Gail Shea said in an interview with Embassy Magazine on Monday. “And if that means going to the WTO, so be it.”
But the ban, which would prohibit the import, export, or even transport of any seal products in any of the EU’s 27 member countries, still faces some hurdles to implementation. The full European Parliament is set to vote on the proposed embargo on 1 April; EU governments also have to approve the measure before it takes effect.
Draft legislation proposed by the European Commission in July 2008 allowed two exemptions, or ‘derogations’ in trade parlance, to the ban: one for seals hunted by Inuit communities, and the other for seals killed in countries that had proved to the EU that their hunts were conducted in a humane manner.
But EU officials voted down the second exemption this week on the grounds that commercial seal hunts are “inherently inhumane” and effective monitoring of the practice is “impossible.”
The Inuit exemption was upheld, but only for products that are traded “as part of a non-commercial exchanges between Inuit communities for cultural, educational or ceremonial purposes,” the draft legislation said.
Ottawa reacted harshly to the results of Monday’s vote.
“It just exemplifies that despite our best efforts, the Europeans are still uninformed and they’re being led by what amounts to politics and emotions on this issue - and not the facts,” fisheries minister Shea said in an interview with The Chronicle Herald.
“The Europeans defined a problem, we addressed the problem, but they’re still voting for the ban. What it tells me is that their voting was to stop the Canadian seal hunt. Period. That’s why I think the Europeans are in an area that is outside their jurisdiction, here.”
But animal rights activists welcomed the move.
“In our opinion, [the exemption] probably would have allowed Canada to continue trade with the EU in seal products,” said Rebecca Aldworth, director of Humane Society International Canada.
“We knew this would allow countries to sanitise their hunts on paper, while essentially the cruelty in the field would go unchecked.”
Anticipating the EU’s vote, a Canadian lawmaker, Liberal senator Mac Harb, introduced legislation on Tuesday to completely ban the seal hunt in Canada.
“In the face of disappearing markets for seal products and overwhelming international opposition, it is time for Canada to recognise that we can’t resuscitate this dying industry any longer,” Harb said in a statement.
But the draft legislations went nowhere, as not a single other senator supported it. Conservative Senator Fabian Manning called Harb’s bill “appalling” and said it would “jeopardise the rights of our sealers to provide a livelihood for their families.”
ICTSD reporting; “Canadian senator makes futile bid to ban seal hunt,” AFP, 4 March 2009; “WTO retaliation threatened as EU seal ban draws closer,” EMBASSY, 4 March 2009; “EU edges toward banning seal hunt products,” CHRONICLE HERALD, 3 March 2009.
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