Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 13 • Number 18 • 20th May 2009

Canada Promises WTO Suit over EU Seal Ban

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The European Parliament has voted overwhelmingly to ban imports of seal products into the 27-nation bloc, a move that quickly prompted Canada to go forward with a lawsuit against the embargo at the WTO.

“We’re moving ahead with an appeal,” Canadian Trade Minister Stockwell Day told Canwest News Service on 5 May. “We’ll go to the WTO because it’s clear in WTO regulations that if one country wants to ban the products of another, it has to have clear scientific, medically acceptable reasons for doing so, and this EU ban is not based on hard science,” Day said.

In a 550-49 vote taken on 5 May, the European Parliament banned all imports of seal products to the 27-nation bloc. The proposed ban still has to win the endorsement of each of the EU’s national governments, but could take effect before the start of next year’s hunting season if it is approved.

The proposed embargo includes an exemption for seals taken by Canada’s Inuit communities, which consider the seal hunt vital to their cultural heritage. But the Inuit leader Mary Simon said that she was not satisfied with the exception.

“Inuit are devastated at today’s vote,” Simon said in a statement on 5 May. “The stated exemption in the legislation will not help us as the markets will once again be effectively destroyed. As Inuit leaders have stated across the Arctic, once you destroy a market for one group, it is destroyed for all.”

Danny Williams, the premier of Newfoundland, an eastern province that is home to the bulk of the country’s roughly 7,000 sealers, called on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to press the seal issue in ongoing talks toward a trade agreement with the EU. Harper responded that he would raise the matter, but added that he did not want the seal controversy to ‘contaminate’ the negotiations.

Norway, another major player in the seal trade, has also threatened to bring a WTO challenge to the EU’s ban (see Bridges Trade BioRes, 1 May 2009, http://ictsd.net/i/news/biores/45941/).

Animal rights activists, who lobbied hard on behalf of the ban, welcomed the results of the vote.

“I hope that the ban on the trade in seal products will save hundreds of thousands of seals from being clubbed and shot under cruel conditions in Canada and elsewhere,” said Carl Schlyter, Vice-Chair of the European Parliament intergroup on animal protection.

“The EU is making history by closing its borders to the products of cruel commercial seal slaughters,” said Rebecca Aldworth, the director of Humane Society International, Canada. “Tuesday’s historic vote will spell the beginning of the end of commercial sealing in Canada.”

The Canadian seal hunt, one of the biggest in the world, is worth an estimated US$ 7 million. The seals are valued for their pelts, as well as their meat, oil blubber, and organs.

ICTSD reporting; “Canada vows to take seal ban fight to WTO,” CANWEST, 5 May 2009; “Seal products banned in Europe,” TELEGRAPH.CO.UK, 5 May 2009; “Williams reignites war of words with Harper over seal hunt,” CBC NEWS, 6 May 2009.

One response to “Canada Promises WTO Suit over EU Seal Ban”

David Bowles 21st May 2009 at 09:15
The RSPCA has produced a briefing which looks at the trade implications of the EU’s propsoed seal ban and its relationship with existing WTO and GATT juris prudence It can be accessed via http://www.rspca.org.uk/servlet/BlobServer?blobtable=RSPCABlob&blobcol=urlblob&blobkey=id&blobwhere=1190637805967&blobheader=application/pdf

It concludes that the legislation has been WTO proofed. If Canada and Norway made good their decision to go to a panel, this would be the first test case for animal welfare; the animal welfare ngos feel that the seals ban would pass such a test.

David