• Executive Summary

  • The Shrimp-Turtle Ruling

  • Impacts of the EU's Banana Trade Regime

  • The Beef Growth Hormone Ruling: An Analysis
    --- 4.2.Background
    --- 4.3.The WTO Original Dispute Panel and Appellate Body Decisions
    --- 4.4.Recommendations

  • WTO Dispute Settlement & Sustainable Development: Solving the Crisis

  • Reference











  • The WTO Beef Growth Hormone Ruling: An Analysis

    Jake Caldwell, Community Nutrition Institute, Washington DC

    Introduction
    In the first dispute settlement decision interpreting the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement (SPS Agreement) of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Appellate Body upheld the judgment of the original panel in favor of the United States and declared the European Union ban on beef treated with growth hormones a violation of WTO rules. This is a major decision in WTO jurisprudence with potentially widespread repercussions for environmental and public health policy in a number of areas.

    The WTO's decision in EC Measures Concerning Meat and Meat Products (Hormones) represents a major expansion of the WTO's authority to examine nondiscriminatory domestic health and environmental laws and will place new restrictions on the future capacity of citizens of all WTO member countries to determine the appropriate level of risk to which they wish to expose themselves. Importantly, the EU measure at issue in the Beef Hormone dispute prohibits the trade in both foreign and domestic beef containing growth hormones.

    The WTO has effectively ruled against the democratic and legislative prerogative of the EU consumer to maintain a zero-risk tolerance for beef containing growth hormone. In the process, the WTO dispute settlement body (DSB) has, inter alia, placed the World Trade Organization in charge of determining the legitimacy of domestic health regulations; misinterpreted the provisions of the SPS text allowing countries to determine the level of appropriate risk for their citizens; favored frequently lower international standards over higher domestic standards; dismissed the precautionary principle as a legitimate basis for health and environmental policy; and, destabilized the international trade regime by inserting itself into a dispute in which it lacks the necessary expertise and competence to adjudicate.