Divergent national food safety standards have often resulted in barriers to trade. The United States and other countries have proposed that trade disputes involving these standards be settled on the basis of scientific input from international food safety organizations. However, political, legal, socioeconomic, and other factors complicate the resolution of such disputes solely on the basis of scientific evidence concerning safety. This reality was evidenced by a recent decision of a principal food standards organization not to establish international standards for four growth hormones used in livestock production.
Agricultural issues have been both prominent and problematic in the current Uruguay Round of international negotiations under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). One of the major agricultural proposals being negotiated under the GATT is the harmonization of national food safety standards. The motivation for globally establishing and maintaining the same food safety standards is that divergent national standards have been used as nontariff barriers to trade. There is also a fear that countries will increasingly resort to these standards if and when other trade barriers are eliminated.
One food safety standard that has figured in agricultural trade disputes involves the approval and use of natural and synthetic sex hormones to promote growth in cattle and other livestock. These hormones have been banned by the European Community (EC), but are widely used in the United States and other countries. The dispute over whether use of these hormones threatens human health or welfare predates but continues to haunt the current GATT negotiations. Indeed, the dispute has been frequently cited as a prime example of why international mechanisms for dealing with food safety controversies should be reformed. It is just this reform that the GATT proposal to harmonize food safety standards is intended to accomplish.
In essence, the proposal suggests that international scientific consensus on product safety be used to settle trade disputes involving divergent food safety standards. The premise is that scientific consensus could provide guidance in sorting out which regulations are truly based on health or safety grounds and which are motivated by protection of domestic producers that is not sanctioned under the GATT. However, a recent policy decision by the world's principal food standards organization illustrates the difficulty nations face in coming to terms with harmonization of food safety standards solely on the basis of scientific consensus.
Even within organizations dedicated to protecting human health and food safety, science is not always the exclusive factor in decision making.
In July 1991 the Codex Alimentarius Commission, one of the three international food standards organizations specifically designated in the GATT draft framework agreement on sanitary and phytosanitary standards to provide scientific information to the GATT, voted not to establish maximum residue levels for four growth-promoting hormones that are widely used in livestock production. The commission's action denies Codex sanction to these production aids for the present time. What makes the action significant is that the commission's own scientific advisory committee, as well as its Committee on Residues of Veterinary Drugs in Foods, had determined that the four hormones—estradiol, progesterone, testosterone, and zeranol—are safe under specified conditions of use and had established recommendations for maximum residue limits.
The commission's vote not to adopt standards for the hormones accorded with existing policies of the European Community (EC), which ban the use of growth hormones and the importation of hormone-treated meat. The Netherlands delegation, speaking for the European Community, argued that no compelling need exists for the hormones, that consumers are concerned about the safety of eating hormone-treated meat, and that questions persist about the regulation of growth hormones used in livestock production. Thus, in voting as it did, the commission legitimized the use of what the Europeans have called the "fourth criterion" in its own decision making rather than acting solely on a scientific determination of safety. The fourth criterion or "fourth hurdle" requires determination of the need for a new production technology as well as establishment of the safety, efficacy, and quality of such a technology.
The Codex Alimentarius Commission has a potentially significant role in helping the GATT to resolve disputes over food safety standards. Certainly the EC and other organizations accorded much prominence to the outcome of the commission's decision on the four growth hormones. The commission's vote may have reflected successful EC lobbying efforts or represented a decision to delay consideration of the hormones until a subsequent commission meeting, when approval of the hormones could again be introduced. What the vote does suggest is that, even within organizations dedicated to protecting human health and food safety as well as enhancing free trade, science is not always the exclusive factor in decision making. It is possible that the repercussions of the commission's recent decision will further diminish any momentum to reach accord on harmonization of food safety standards in GATT negotiations.
In the view of the United States, the hormone ban is a trade protection measure designed to limit U.S. exports of meat to the European Community
Growth hormone controversy
The dispute over growth hormones reveals much about the difficulties of dealing with nationally divergent food technologies. Most observers agree that the European ban on hormones represented a political decision by the European Commission (the civil service of the European Community) and the EC Council of Ministers to reassure consumers who were uncertain about the safety of hormone use in livestock and who questioned the need for hormone use in light of mounting and costly beef surpluses throughout the Community.
Safety concerns first arose in the late 1970s when meat with sexual hormones was linked to precocious sexual development in children. U.S. agencies that studied the problem—including the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Agriculture, and the Centers for Disease Control—found no proof that growth hormones were the cause of premature development. However, consumer and media activism in Europe kept alive the issue of hormone contamination of the meat supply. In December 1985 the EC Council of Ministers adopted a plan to gradually eliminate all nontherapeutic hormone use in production of meat consumed in the European Community. The ban was scheduled to go into effect January 1, 1988.
In January 1987 the United States filed a complaint with the GATT. However, the EC blocked GATT action on the complaint by frustrating the establishment of a panel of technical experts. Finally, in December 1987, the EC granted its trading partners a one-year extension for meeting the terms of the ban.
The United States contends that the European Community's ban on the use of nontherapeutic hormones in the production of meat is not based on scientific evidence.
Reaction of trading partners to the European hormone ban was extremely negative. The United States objected that the policy was not based on scientific evidence of any danger resulting from proper use of approved hormone implants. It has taken the position that the EC has banned hormones as a trade protection measure in the face of costly European beef surpluses brought about as a result of EC dairy policies.
In December 1988, as the ban approached, the United States announced that it would impose tariffs on various imports from the EC valued at about $100 million—an amount equivalent to estimates of meat trade lost due to the ban. In response, the EC said that it would permit imports of pork and horsemeat from the United States for human consumption provided that the United States would agree to test the meat for hormone use. The United States then agreed to begin a certification program for hogs and horses.
In 1988 the U.S. Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) requested certification from the EC that meat produced in EC countries did in fact meet U.S. safety requirements for hormone residues and that residue testing procedures and efforts were equivalent to U.S. standards. If convincing certification was not forthcoming, the FSIS could cancel the eligibility of EC countries to export meat and meat products to the United States.
The EC then announced that it would restrict various imports from the United States valued at $360 million, but has delayed doing so while both sides search for a compromise. Compromise measures have skirted the basic controversy over the legitimacy of the hormone ban. In February 1989 the United States and the EC formed a hormone task force to seek further compromise. Despite the desire on the part of both parties to find an acceptable way out of the impasse, no definite solution has yet been reached.
Role of science in harmonization
At the heart of the hormone case is the role of science in harmonizing technical agricultural and food safety standards—referred to in the GATT negotiations as sanitary and phytosanitary standards (SPS). The United States has argued that these standards should be based on science or be scientifically defensible. Authors of both the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and a subsequent agreement of many of the GATT member states called the Code on Technical Barriers to Trade (also known as the Standards Code) concur, but have had little success in requiring that health-related measures be scientifically justified and not based on discriminatory trade practices.
The United States and other countries have favored strengthening settlement procedures for disputes over technical standards. Presently, neither the GATT nor the Standards Code provides an effective mechanism for resolving such disputes, as evidenced by the fact that the GATT and the code are almost never used, despite numerous trade quarrels involving technical standards. Thus, when trade disputes arise over differences in technical standards, the United States and others advocate reliance on scientific input from international organizations charged with the development of animal, plant, or food standards. They propose that trade disputes over a particular food safety standard be resolved in favor of those countries whose standard is in compliance with an internationally determined scientific standard. A country whose standard differs from the international standard would be asked to explain the scientific basis for its standard, and a GATT panel would be asked to review the scientific validity of the standard.
If the panel deemed the standard to be scientifically unjustified, three options could be pursued under the GATT. The country with the scientifically unjustified standard would be asked to comply with or adopt the international standard, to accept the foreign product in question while holding domestic producers to a domestic standard, or to pay compensation for impeding trade. If the GATT panel decided that a nation did have scientifically justifiable reasons for a standard that deviates from the international standard, another set of options would be pursued. To date, these options have not been finalized.
The GATT Secretariat has drafted a framework agreement based on the above proposal. Before this agreement is approved, some issues must be resolved. One critical issue is whether scientific justification is sufficient justification for an international food safety standard. Recent developments in the ongoing U.S.–EC hormone controversy suggest that scientific determinations of safety will rarely be acceptable as the sole basis of international food safety policy.
Complicating factors
As the hormone case illustrates, a number of factors can lead to divergent food safety standards. One of the complications in harmonizing these standards is that policy approaches to food safety differ from country to country. Some countries focus on establishing safety criteria and inspection procedures for final food products. Among these countries, risk assessment methods and safety standards tend to differ. Other countries focus on establishing safety criteria and inspection procedures for food production and processing. Among these countries, agricultural, manufacturing, or laboratory practices tend to differ. Also, in some countries the private sector is required to generate and supply information confirming that products meet safety criteria, while in others the government is responsible for providing such information.
At present, neither the GATT nor the Standards Code provide an effective mechanism for resolving trade disputes involving divergent food safety standards.
Another complication in harmonizing food safety standards is that taxes and subsidies that affect domestic food producers differ among nations. These taxes and subsidies encourage or discourage the development and use of certain agricultural inputs and food production processes.
A host of other factors also complicate harmonization of divergent food safety standards. One of these is differences in the legislative authority of individual countries to accept and enforce international food safety standards. Others are differences among countries in the mandate of domestic institutions for promulgating and enforcing food safety standards; representation of different interests in the making of food safety policies; and processes for reaching policy judgments concerning food safety.
Prospects for harmonization
Doubts remain as to whether current GATT negotiations will result in substantive progress toward achievement of agricultural goals. With regard to sanitary and phytosanitary standards, GATT negotiators face difficulties in a few key areas. However, GATT negotiations could still make an important contribution to harmonization of food safety standards if they could improve dispute settlement procedures and set the stage for better coordination and communication of information about technical standards among countries.
A fundamental question remains. Should trade disputes involving food safety standards be resolved solely on the basis of scientific evidence concerning safety, or on the basis of this evidence plus political and economic considerations? The recent decision of the Codex Alimentarius Commission not to establish international standards for the four hormones previously sanctioned by its own consultative scientific committee does not bode well for harmonization on scientific grounds. If one of the international food standards organizations proposed by the GATT to provide scientific backup for resolution of trade disputes hesitates to set its own standards on the basis of scientific criteria, where is scientific consensus to be found? If countries are to rely on organizations such as the Codex Alimentarius Commission for scientific consensus, these organizations need to clarify their decision-making criteria and procedures.
Carol S. Kramer, a former fellow of the National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy at RFF, is associate director of the Resources and Technology Division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service. The account of the hormone controversy was summarized from "Food Safety and International Trade: The U.S.–EC Meat and Hormone Controversies," in The Political Economy of U.S. Agriculture: Challenges for the 1990s, edited by Carol S. Kramer. The views expressed in the above article are solely the author's and do not represent the official policy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
A version of this article appeared in print in the October 1991 issue of Resources magazine.
A version of this article appeared in print in the October 1991 issue of Resources magazine.
