It was the longest and possibly the most complex ruling ever put out by the World Trade Organization, running to more than 1,000 pages.
But after years of litigation, little is likely to change at least for consumers here as a result of the finding that the European Union breached trade rules by restricting imports of genetically modified crops and food.
The problem lies largely in differing ways of looking at biotechnology and the products derived from it.
The United States, which brought the suit along with Canada and Argentina, argued about free trade and the ability of farmers to capitalize on scientific advances.
''The facts on agricultural biotechnology are clear and compelling,'' the U.S. trade representative, Rob Portman, said in a statement after the WTO's preliminary ruling was leaked from Geneva late Tuesday. ''It is a safe and beneficial technology that is improving food security and helping to reduce poverty worldwide.''
In Brussels on Wednesday, the deputy U.S. trade representative Susan Schwab said the EU's position had made it ''difficult for farmers and consumers to benefit from these foods.''
For the Europeans, though, the case is also about politics, responding to public fears justified or not about perceived threats to health and the environment. On a continent scarred in recent years by health scandals ranging from mad cow disease to dioxin contamination of eggs and chickens, there is precious little appetite to experiment any more with the food supply.
There also is an element of allowing each country the sovereign right to make such decisions itself even if it means ignoring multilateral agreements.
Friends of the Earth, a leading environmental pressure group, described the report in a statement as ''an inappropriate intrusion into decisions about what food people eat.''
''The WTO has bluntly ruled that European safeguards should be sacrificed to benefit biotech corporations,'' said Adrian Bebb, a campaigner on genetically modified organisms at Friends of the Earth Europe.
The commission reacted angrily to the comments, according to one person familiar with thinking in its trade department. ''They are misleading people,'' he said, asking not to be named because the WTO report remains confidential. ''Nothing in this panel finding will argue that states cannot set the rules they wish for GM products,'' the person said.
Trade officials said the report found that the EU had an effective moratorium on approving biotechnology products from 1998 until 2004, when a new approval process and labeling rules for biotech products in the EU took effect.
Europe argued that it did not have a moratorium but that it just took time to weigh the possible risks posed by genetic engineering. It favored a ''precautionary'' approach as opposed to Washington's ''laissez-faire'' stance.
The United States, joined by Canada and Argentina, filed a complaint against the European Union in 2003, claiming that a moratorium on approvals of genetically modified crops that Europe adopted in 1998 violated a food trade treaty that requires regulatory decisions to be made without ''undue delay'' and to be based on science.
The three countries also complained that six European countries Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Luxembourg violated trade rules by banning even biotech crops that had been approved by the European Commission.
The panel ruled in favor of the United States regarding the bans by the six countries. It also ruled in favor of the United States on all but a handful of specific crops, according to Val Giddings, a biotechnology industry consultant who said he had been briefed on the ruling.
Peter Power, the European Union's spokesman for trade, denied that the EU currently bans biotech products, pointing out that three corn varieties were approved by the EU last month. He said the EU would not change its current approval process, calling the WTO report ''largely of historical interest.''
But a U.S. trade official said that some applications filed in the 1990s had still not been approved. Moreover, the recent approvals have generally been for importing crops, not for growing them.
The official disclosed details of the case on the condition that he not be identified because preliminary WTO decisions are confidential. He said he was commenting because parts of the decision had already been leaked to the news media.
The decision could still be changed before it is released, though such an action is unusual. After it is made public, probably in March or April, the parties can appeal. EU officials said it was too soon to say whether they would appeal.
Europe could ignore the ruling and instead accept retaliatory tariffs on some of its exports to the United States.
Even though the ruling is not expected to flood Europe with biotech foods, U.S. government and industry officials said it would help discourage other countries from adopting similar barriers and would set a precedent that countries must have sound scientific reasons for rejecting genetically modified crops. Some countries have feared they would lose exports to Europe if they were to grow the crops.
''One of the reasons we brought the case was because of the chilling effect the EU's actions had on the adoption of biotechnology,'' the U.S. trade official told reporters Tuesday.
Illustrating the resistance in Europe, the French cabinet just this week adopted a bill to allow regulated trials of biotech crops, the AFX news agency reported. The government, which faced the prospect of heavy fines for failing to follow EU directives from 2001 and 2003, hopes a law will be adopted by the end of the year. Some experts, though, said the WTO's decision could harden resistance to the foods.
''To the extent the issue has died down a little in Europe, it risks bringing it to the forefront again,'' said Charlotte Hebebrand, president of the International Food and Agricultural Trade Policy Council, a group based in Washington that supports open trade. Until Friday, Hebebrand worked in the European Commission's Washington office.
Julian Kinderlerer, assistant director of the Sheffield Institute of Biotechnological Law and Ethics in England, said: ''What will the political fallout be of effectively Americans saying, 'Tough, you've got to eat it,''' he said. ''I think the fallout would be quite nasty.''International Herald Tribune
