Associated Press | February 7, 2006
The World Trade Organization is expected to release its preliminary decision Tuesday on a legal complaint brought by the United States, Canada and Argentina over an EU moratorium on approval of new biotech foods.
The decision is said to be one of the most complicated the commerce body has issued, running to several hundred pages, and has been delayed several times.
The complainants claim that there is no scientific evidence for the European Union's actions and that the moratorium has been an unfair barrier to producers of biotech foods who want to export to the EU.
Friends of the Earth say the case undermines the right of governments to decide for themselves what is safe for their citizens, and puts pressure on other countries especially developing nations to accept genetically modified foods against their will.
The EU ended its moratorium in 2004 when it allowed onto the market a modified strain of sweet corn, grown mainly in the United States, but Washington says it will continue with its WTO case until it is convinced that all applications for approval are being decided on scientific rather than political grounds.
