From Ideal to Real in International Food Safety
1
A talk given to the conference "Legal Platform for Consumer Concerns and International Trade in Food and Agriculture"
Steve Suppan
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
Ssuppan@iatp.org
July 2002
The apostles of economic integration prescribe comprehensive institutional reforms that took today’s advanced countries generations to accomplish, so that developing countries can, as the cliché goes, maximize the gains and minimize the risks of participation in the world economy. Global integration has become, for all practical purposes, a substitute for development strategy. ... [However] integration is the result, not the cause, of economic and social development.
Dani Rodrick, "Trading in illusions", FOREIGN POLICY (March/April 2001)2We need at least an extra $50 billion of official development assistance each year if we are to reach the [United Nations] Millennium [Conference] development goals, including the halving of extreme poverty in the world by 2015, to which all the world’s governments have committed themselves. That means double the present figure for ODA -- which may sound ambitious, but would still leave us well short of the recognized goal of 0.7 percent of gross national product for all donor countries. I still see no good reason why the Monterey Conference [International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterey Mexico] should not adopt that extra $50 billion as an immediate, short term target, to be achieved within two or three years.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, Address to the World Economic Forum (4 February 2002)
These two quotes represent the most general context of my talk. The first quote criticizes the practice of seeking global integration through various prescriptive means -- I would include here the harmonization of sanitary and phytosanitary standards -- but without a development strategy to guide that integration. The second quote concerns the need for the government’s venture capital investment for development in the many places where private capital markets have not ventured to tread. In my country, when laws and regulations are promulgated but receive no or inadequate funding to implement and enforce them, they are called "unfunded mandates." "Unfunded mandates" are usually characterized as examples of bad governance, particularly by those who wish to "shrink" government and turn over many constitutional functions of government to "the market." (Indeed, even horticultural trade dispute resolution in the North American Free Trade Area has been privatized.3)
Under the slogan "trade not aid," justification for the decline of aid to developing countries is made by holding out the possibility of development through trade. The proliferation of global integration rules, whether implemented or not, is taken by some to be tantamount to be a "tool" that can "make a huge contribution to the generation of resources for the financing of development."4 According to this line of thinking, the rules provide the proverbial "opportunity to trade" and trade volume is taken as a proxy for economic growth. However, even proponents of trade liberalization as a tool for development have become concerned that a proliferation of rules without the means to implement them will doom prospects for the so-called Doha Development Round of trade negotiations, to say nothing of dooming development itself. In a February 5th speech to U.S. government and industry officials, World Trade Organization Director General designate Supachai Panitchpakdi warned that unless technical assistance and capacity building were offered to actually implement the WTO agreements, rather than merely to better understand WTO rules, the next round of negotiations would not succeed.5
Likewise, though on a much humbler scale, I’ll try to suggest here that the harmonization of sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) standards can only be a tool for development if they can be implemented so that all consumers are protected by them. Otherwise, unimplemented and unenforced standards, as unfunded mandates, offer the appearance, but not the substance, of protection. Article 9 of the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement) calls for technical assistance to aid implementation, but this article is merely another "best endeavor" provision and contains no binding commitments. The WTO Ministerial Meeting in Doha merely restated these good intentions.6
It is not my purpose here to criticize here the policy underpinnings of what Rodrik calls "the apostles of global integration" since he and others have done that more comprehensively and eloquently than I can. Rather, as global integration is fast-tracked in the name of development, I want to consider with you some of the difficulties in making the implementation of food safety standards a tool for global integration. I will analyze briefly some difficulties indicated in multilateral initiatives by the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the World Bank, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the WTO, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Some of these difficulties are signaled in reports from national governments and non-governmental organizations. However, making a full analytic inventory of these initiatives and difficulties, as called for by our conference organizers, is beyond my own powers and I look forward to our joint effort to do so.
Following the analytic part of my presentation, I’ll outline a few policy proposals that would make the global integration of food safety standards a tool for development.7 As noted in a paper by a Tanzanian NGO, "[s]tandards should not be seen merely as technical instruments. They should be viewed as a means of industrial improvement, means of protecting the health and safety of Tanzanians and their trade partners, and ultimately, as partnership between consumers, industrialists and the public sector."8 Hopefully, my brief analysis of some real impediments to the implementation of ideal food safety standards and my review of pragmatic proposals for SPS development can inform the discussion of the Legal Platform that is the goal of this conference.
The pace of economic integration is accelerating through so many institutional reforms that it is often impossible for a developing country to send even one representative to a meeting germane to its future, let alone influence the terms, implementation and financing of the negotiations. Quite understandably, developing countries are alarmed at not being able to participate in meetings whose decisions require often expensive implementation, and they have proposed means to participate more effectively. For example, to carry out the intent of the Doha Ministerial Declaration to enhance developing country participation in the WTO, nine developing countries tabled a non-paper that would require, among other measures, that "[n]o more than one negotiating body shall meet at one time, even in informal mode."9 To judge by the history of the preparations for the Doha Ministerial and by the restructuring of the WTO Secretariat for the next round of negotiations, it is unlikely that this proposal will be implemented. Instead, the WTO will create a fund to offer technical assistance to developing country missions to better understanding negotiation topics, such as investment and government procurement, to which most developing countries have been opposed.10 At present, there is no belief by major donors that good governance in trade policy requires any fuller measures of technical assistance.
One of the institutional reforms that integration advocates have prescribed is the harmonization of SPS standards to facilitate international trade in food. Here too, the pace of integration is accelerating. The Chairperson of the Codex Alimentarius Commission has proposed a strategic framework that, among other goals, would "facilitate faster consideration and finalization of draft standards across committees."11 The Codex Commission will be asked to approve an accelerated SPS integration plan for standards at its 2003 meeting. To assist Least Developed Country participation in Codex meetings, an FAO/WHO Trust Fund of U.S. $98 million for 49 countries has been proposed with the hope that funding commitments could be gathered in three to five years.12 Such a fund, the need for which has been acknowledged for years, is not only overdue, but necessary to garner enough participation to legitimize the claim that Codex standards are elaborated on the basis of broad scientific consensus. At the latest Codex Commission meeting, fewer than half of Codex’s nearly 170 members sent delegations. At most Codex Committee meetings, less than a quarter of members participate. At sometimes crucial Codex working group meetings, still fewer members participate. For example, at a recent meeting towards developing international guidelines on risk analysis of allergenicity in genetically engineered food, only nine members sent delegations.
But will a one-time fund to facilitate the participation of 49 Codex members in SPS integration for an accelerated adoption of standards and related texts benefit the development of the Least Developed Countries? If developing country food production and export facilities are able to meet the more rapidly adopted "farm to fork" standards and implement them, will the doors of market access open? If so, how long will they remain open before the next standard is used as a non-tariff barrier to their exports? If they open, will resulting agricultural export revenues reverse the declining terms of trade for most developing counties during the past twenty-five years? Furthermore, after paying the interest on debt to international financial institutions and the cost of institutional reforms to comply with global trade agreements and structural adjustment programs, will agricultural exports provide enough revenue to pay for essential imports and for development programs. In sum, can the opportunity cost of diverting money from development programs to pay for implementation of WTO agreements be paid off when prices for commodities from developing countries remain at the Great Depression levels they have been for most of the past 25 years?13 Developing country policy makers struggle with such questions as they distribute their budgets under structural adjustment constraints to fund basic development programs and infrastructure, and to underwrite trade and investment development.
World Bank economists Michael Finger and Phillip Schuler note that just to implement the WTO agreements on SPS measures, trade-related intellectual property rights, and customs valuation would cost the developing countries reviewed in their study an average U.S.$150 million per country, i.e. the cost of all development programs in a year for many Least Developed Countries.14 In view of the lack of technical assistance and aid for implementing the WTO Agreements to make the vaunted trade "playing field" slightly more even, they dryly note that "Our review suggests then that international trade negotiations are a poor way to take on development problems."15 Such empirical reviews of the costs of implementation notwithstanding, it does not appear likely that Integrated Framework for Technical Assistance among the WTO, the Bank, the Fund and UNCTAD will be financed sufficiently to implement the Agreements at the scale that Finger and Schuler would characterize as implementation.
When the estimated cost of implementation for the SPS Agreement in just one country is compared to funds available for implementation, the gap between the ideals of food safety rules and the reality of implementation, to say nothing of enforcement, is quite dramatic. For example, a government analysis of the compliance costs with the SPS Agreement and Codex standards for Sri Lankan cocoa and spice exports estimates that training costs alone for the country’s 70,000 spice traders would be about U.S.$1.95 million. The government has a budget of just U.S.$24,000 for such training. Then, for the training in Codex standards to result, in theory, in a greater volume of exports and higher prices for an improved product, Sri Lanka would have to acquire better storage, drying and processing methods, to avoid microbial contamination.16
The practical difficulties of implementing SPS standards are by no means limited to developing countries alone. The focus on developing country implementation has come about as they have complained about SPS standards being used as unfair barriers to trade. Government audits of the implementation of food standards systems,17 as well as journalist exposés of failed systems18, give us glimpses into the extent of the gap between rule, implementation and enforcement in industrialized countries. Negotiators from industrialized countries for Codex Alimentarius standards generally do not refer to any failing of implementation of standards. They have a mandate and are under pressure to accelerate standard setting, but not to advise on implementation or enforcement. Indeed, Codex itself has little empirical basis against which to judge which of its standards have been adopted into national legislation and whether such legislation has been implemented in enforced regulations. Given this lack of data, Codex has not attempted to demonstrate in a comprehensive empirical survey that the adoption of its standards and related texts has resulted in improved consumer protection and fairer international trade in food.
The scarcity of data to show what the standards have achieved thus far was pointed out by Digby Gascoine, then Chair of the Codex Committee on Food Import and Export Inspection and Certification Systems (CCFICS) at an international trade-related food safety conference in October 1999. Mr Gascoine wrote that "There are no firm data as to the extent of use of Codex standards. The acceptance procedure by which Codex members are expected to voluntarily indicate their recognition of Codex norms at the national level is now rarely used. WTO Members when notifying new or revised technical requirements under the relevant procedure are expected to indicate whether their measure conforms with a relevant international (e.g. Codex) standard, guideline or recommendation, but such notifications can give only a very limited impression of whether Codex norms are meeting national needs and therefore providing a suitable basis for harmonization."19
Despite the scarcity of data about the adoption of presumptively WTO legal SPS standards and guidelines, at the urging of the WTO Secretariat, CCFICS presented to the July 2001 session of the Codex Alimentarius Commission guidelines on the judgment of equivalence among SPS measures and systems. The Commission delegates declined to adopt the draft guidelines by using an accelerated procedure to expedite adoption, as recommended by the CCFICS Chair. Adoption of the guidelines would have given a theoretically common basis upon which to negotiate bilateral equivalence agreements, as called for in Article 4.1 of the SPS agreement. Rejection of the guidelines occurred for a variety of procedural and substantive reasons,20 not the least of which was that delegates could not agree on the kinds of information to be considered in negotiating an equivalency agreement.21
These disagreements may be resolved in time to approve guidelines on equivalence agreements at the Commission meeting in 2003. However, the ability of governments to implement equivalency agreements in ways that are consistent with government laws and regulations is open to question. For example, a report by the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Agriculture reviewed 36 bilateral equivalency agreements for meat and poultry trade to determine whether the agreements upheld U.S. SPS standards and regulatory requirements. The report stated, "FSIS [Food Safety and Inspection Service] cannot demonstrate that it judged the foreign food safety systems of current trading partners according to U.S. standards. ... Control procedures for equivalency determinations were not developed or adequately documented, technical subject-matter experts were not always involved in the process, and specific areas of foreign inspection systems have not yet been reviewed to verify that they are equivalent to U.S. standards. FSIS' country files did not contain sufficient evidence of FSIS' analysis of the information the country governments submitted to document their inspection systems. Moreover, FSIS granted equivalency status to six countries before it performed onsite equivalency verification reviews, and the onsite reviews that were performed were not adequately documented to support what was reviewed and what deficiencies were found. ... We concluded that inadequate planning for the transition to the new organization structure, as well as inadequate management oversight of the operational changes to the import inspection processes, contributed to the breakdown in controls that were designed to ensure the safety and wholesomeness of imported products entering the United States."22
Given the heightened awareness about agriculture bio-terrorism since the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, government auditors may scrutinize actual implementation of equivalency agreements even more closely in the future. The food industry is firmly resisting tougher legislation in the United States, so that gathering data on food safety in manufacturing plants will be no easier than before September 11.23 Transnational food companies will presumably communicate this resistance to tougher regulation to their manufacturing sites all over the world. If it does not prove feasible to implement equivalency agreements in the United States, at least with existing personnel and infrastructure, what will happen for equivalency agreements negotiated with governments whose SPS infrastructure and budgets have actually declined since the conclusion of the Uruguay Round agreements?
A hint of the future of SPS equivalency in the U.S. court system was provided in a federal court decision in September 2001 against a U.S. Animal Plant and Health Inspection Service (APHIS) determination that imports of Argentine citrus presented "negligible" risk to U.S. plant health. APHIS had determined that the "systems approach" of the Argentina plant health inspection service, SENASA, was sufficient to allow citrus imports. The court, commenting on allegations that SENASA had covered up an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease said it "was concerned whether SENASA can be entrusted to enforce the mitigation measures [against citrus pest infestation] used by the systems approach."24 Though APHIS may appeal the ruling to a higher court, the plaintiff in the case, a U.S. citrus trade association, regards the ruling as a legal precedent that can be used to challenges other SPS equivalence judgments: "this is truly a landmark ruling that will benefit all agricultural trade."25 The export promotion official who headed the Argentine delegation to the Codex Commission meeting this past July will hardly agree. Much to the consternation of the Codex Secretariat, he called for a "standstill" provision on new national SPS rules while Codex standards were being deliberated. The domination of Codex by trade officials or by industry lobbyists acting through SPS officials is threatening not just the decorum of Codex meetings, but the autonomous authority of science based standards.
Given this kind of resistance to "equivalence" implementation and given the need to show some movement on implementation issues in the preparations for the Doha Ministerial, on October 24, the WTO SPS Committee issued a Decision on equivalence implementation. Among other aspects of the Decision, the Committee stated in a Codex-like guideline, "The acceptance of the equivalence of a measure related to a single product may not require the development of a systems-wide agreement."26 Though it is difficult to extract a single SPS measure in isolation from the SPS system, e.g. with regard to enforcement, this Decision still holds out the promise that "equivalence" can be judged measure by measure. This Decision may be happy news for Argentina and for APHIS, if it is allowed as evidence in U.S. federal court. It almost goes without saying that the Decision urges the importing Member to "accelerate its procedure for determining equivalence in respect of those products which it has historically imported from the exporting Member."27 Despite the call for acceleration of equivalence agreements to increase trade, the Decision remains where many WTO disciplines do, namely, in the Land of Best Endeavour.
Developing country responses to the disappointing implementation of the SPS agreement have ranged from a barely veiled repudiation of SPS agreement terms, to calls for technical assistance beyond the minimal funds to participate in Codex and WTO meetings, to more comprehensive analyses of the trade function in nationally lead development strategies. It is unlikely that developed country SPS negotiators, much less their consuming public, will accept the verdict of a Ugandan delegate to the Doha ministerial that "[T]he developing world should have autonomy to decide whether their products are safe for consumption and the whole business of certification should be made much simpler and easier."28 Indeed, at the same meeting at which the Ugandan delegate spoke, an NGO representative stated that "We ought to leave it up to the discretion of the consumers in the developed world what they want to consume."29
Given this conflicted state of affairs, what is to be done? First, towards having the means to implement rules and standards, a big financial commitment to development, including to food safety, is required. Unfortunately, the $50 billion for development called for by Secretary General Annan did not result from the Financing for Development conference in March in Monterey, Mexico. Proposals, such as the "Tobin tax," for financing development were excluded from consideration at Financing for Development in the interests of having a 'clean' consensus document prior to the summit. The "Tobin tax" would rein in financial speculation with a 0.1 to 0.5 percent tax on foreign currency transactions, the proceeds from which would finance national development strategies, as well as intergovernmental development agencies.30 Indeed, one longtime observer of the international financial institutions wrote that "it was conveyed to Third World delegates in unmistakable terms that if the PrepCom did not adopt a clean consensus text in January, some of the Heads of States, notably the U.S. President, would not participate."31 So let us assume that there will be no reform of the international financial architecture that was the raison d’être for the conference. Let us further assume that developing countries will remain subject to the financial depredations that have ruined public investment in development in Thailand, Indonesia, Brazil and Argentina, among other countries. In sum, let us not count on healthy national domestic budgets to assist enhancement of SPS infrastructure and training. What can be done on a smaller scale?
At the FAO/WHO Global Forum of Food Safety Regulators in January 2002, Dr. Deepak Gupta lamented the reduction of capacity building in food safety to that of assisting the export sector. He called for the "preparation of a National Action Plan based on an objective needs assessment. This assessment would provide data to be used by member governments and Capacity Building agencies to set priorities, make decisions about programme activities, and allocate resources. ... Once the plan is prepared elements of it could be posed for bilateral assistance."32 The national strategy would supervise the various bilateral projects so that they would neither duplicate each other nor work at cross-purposes. To this utterly sensible proposal he adds his support for the creation of a team of food safety officials in each WHO Regional Offices and FAO Regional Offices.33 One of the many tasks that these teams could perform would be to assist and coordinate preparation of a biannual report on the member countries’ budget history and infra-structural capacity for both domestic and export oriented food safety programs.
Since the FAO budget has been stagnate for the past decade, and its current financing can only be described as perilous,34 Gupta proposes the creation of a Global Food Safety Fund.35 Immediately the question of the financing of such a Fund arises. Should the Fund be donor driven, like the one-time $98 million funded envisioned for LDC Codex participation, or should it be financed by an independent, continuous funding mechanism from which only interest on the principal equity could be spent. My own preference is for the latter mechanism. It would be worth studying the feasibility of establishing a Tobin-like tax on speculation in the agricultural commodities futures and options, levied on a per transaction basis. With the entry of huge mutual funds and hedge funds speculating in the futures and options market, grain exchange officials recognize privately that the price volatility of agricultural commodities has less to do with the relation of supply and demand, and more to do with the movement of speculative money. A Tobin-like tax could have a salubrious and stabilizing effect on the futures and options market, while also providing a continuous funding basis for the terribly under-funded food safety programs of developing countries. One example of the degree of this underfunding is Mexico. There, the federal SPS budget for fiscal year 2001 amounted to just U.S.$25 million, less than one half percent of the agricultural ministry budget,36 and less than one dollar per Mexican citizen.
Dealing with trade-related SPS disputes is another difficult problem that I hope this conference can address. Past developing country non-papers on the SPS agreement have sought recourse in Article 10 on Special and Differential Treatment. But the recourse sought is perhaps too broad to have met with any response from major agricultural importers. For example, in June 2000, India wrote, "[w]ith a view to giving meaning to this provision Article 10], it was proposed by India that if an SPS measure created a problem for more than one developing country, then it should be withdrawn. Further, it was also suggested by India that if an SPS measure created problems for several developing countries but could not be withdrawn, the country adopting the measure should reconsider the same and provide the necessary technical assistance to enable developing countries to adapt."37 Withdrawal of a measure is unlikely in most cases, and SPS capacity building requires funding, as well as technical know-how and political will.
What about the possibility of lowering an SPS standard with a view to increasing developing country exports? In October 2001, the World Bank published a paper that suggested "adopting a worldwide [i.e. Codex] standard for aflatoxin B1 -- the most potentially toxic of all aflatoxins -- based on current international guidelines is found to increase the level of cereal and nut trade among the countries studied by $US 6.1 billion from the 1998 levels."38 In the paper’s cost/benefit analysis of food safety standards, the benefits of food safety standards were severely restricted: "The benefits of food safety regulation are reductions in risks of morbidity and mortality associated with the consumption of contaminated food."39 The application of the authors’ econometric model for measuring trade and food safety standards did not extend to determining what it would cost to provide storage and drying facilities that would reduce aflatoxins to the higher standard. Nor did the econometricians calculate the benefits of a higher aflatoxin standard in decreased food borne illness, decreased health costs and decreased work hours lost in the exporting, as well as importing, country. Perhaps a more complete cost-benefit analysis might find that the benefits to the exporting country of a higher standard implemented with technical assistance would outweigh the trade benefits of a lower standard. Nonetheless, whatever the shortcomings of this econometric approach, it has considerable currency in public policy. For example, in the United States, all public health, food safety and environmental regulations can be blocked or altered after a cost-benefit review by the Office of Management and Budget, where the econometric approach reigns supreme.40
There are the beginnings of capacity-building for developing countries to bring SPS based disputes to WTO dispute panels. The newly established International Lawyers and Economists Against Poverty initiative to give pro bono counsel to developing countries in WTO matters41 could take up SPS disputes. Developing countries could consider tabling a non-paper under the Agreement on Agriculture negotiations to amplify the following proposal by the Common Market for Eastern and South Africa (COMESA): "The importing country should provide financial compensation when exports from developing countries are disrupted and serious financial losses occur. As an alternative, a global fund could be established for this purpose."42 Given the instructions in the Doha Declaration to discuss Special and Differential Treatment in all negotiating sessions, a non-paper on the COMESA proposal could be developed as part of a negotiating proposal. Developing countries could request assistance from FAO in framing a WTO non-paper on SPS related compensation mechanisms, as several countries did to table a non-paper on the Marrakesh Decision on possible negative consequences of the Agreement on Agriculture for Least Developed Countries and Net-Food Importing Developing Countries.
There are many other pragmatic ideas and constraints on those ideas that one could consider towards making food safety a tool for development. I should not close my talk without at least mentioning that The Netherlands’ government, a co-sponsor of this conference, is a global leader in providing the kind of technical assistance that goes beyond providing for the needs of export facilities in developing countries that traditionally export to The Netherlands.43 I look forward to discussing ideas for implementing and enforcing food standards with you and thank you for your attention to what I have presented here.
1 | This is a revision of a talk given at the 15-16 February 2002 conference, "Legal Platform for Consumer Concerns and International Trade in Food and Agriculture" in The Hague, Netherlands. I have tried to conserve the purpose of the talk within the conference, to develop an "inventory" of multilateral initiatives concerning the conference title.
2 | Dani Rodrik, "Trading in illusions," rpt. In COURRIER DE LA PLANETE (Vol. 5, no. 65: 2001), 6-7.
3 | See, Tammy Smith, "Food Fight: An Appraisal of the Fruit and Vegetable Dispute Resolution Corporation," MINNESOTA JOURNAL OF GLOBAL TRADE (Spring 2002) Vol., 11, 285-309.
4 | Mike Moore, "A Grand Bargain: A New International Deal," UN FINANCING FOR DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE (21 March 2002; Monterey, Mexico).
5 | "Supachai Ties Round’s Success To Improved Technical Assistance," INSIDE U.S. TRADE, 8 February 2002.
6 | Michael Friis Jensen, "Reviewing the SPS Agreement: A Developing Country Perspective," CENTRE FOR DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH, CDR Working Paper (Copenhagen, February 2002), 22-23.
7 | For a more extensive list of proposals, see Steve Suppan and Rod Leonard, "Comments Submitted to the Independent Evaluation of the Codex Alimentarius and Other FAO-WHO Work on Food Standards," INSTITUTE FOR AGRICULTURE AND TRADE POLICY (May 2002) at "http://www.wtowatch.org/library/admin/uploadedfiles/Comments_Submitted_to_the_Independent_Evaluati.htm
8 | Flora M. Musonda and W. Mbowe, "The Impact of Implementing SPS and TBT Agreements: Case of Fish Export to European Union by Tanzania," paper presented at CUTS/UNCTAD International Workshop, "Negotiating Agenda for Market Access: Cases of SPS and TBT," (Geneva; 24-25 April 2001) at http://cuts.org/sps-analysis-sps_case_tan.htm/
9 | "Establishment of the Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC) and Related Issues," Communication from Cuba, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Honduras, Kenya, Pakistan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe (21 December 2001) WT/GC/58, para. 3 d.
10 | "WTO Grapples With Technical Assistance Promised At Doha," INSIDE U.S. TRADE, 25 January 2002.
11 | "Chairperson’s Action Plan," CODEX ALIMENTARIUS COMMISSION (24th Session; 2-7 July 2001), ALINORM 01/6-Add.1, para. 8.
12 | "FAO proposes food safety fund for least developed countries," FOOD CHEMICAL NEWS, Vol. 43, Issue 14 (21 May 2001).
13 | E.g. as documented in Alfred Maizels, Commodities in Crisis: The Commodities Crisis of the 1980s and the Political Economy of International Commodity Policies (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1992).
14 | J. Michael Finger and Philip Schuler, "Implementation of Uruguay Round Commitments: The Development Challenge," THE WORLD BANK (October 1999) at http://www-wds.worldbank.org/
15 | Ibid. at 21.
16 | Anura Herath, "Cost of Compliance of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Requirements in Beverages and Spices in Sri Lanka," paper presented at a CUTS/UNCTAD International Workshop, "Negotiating Agenda for Market Access: Cases of SPS and TBT," at http://cuts.org/sps-analysis_srilanka.htm/
17 | e.g., Barry Wilson, "Food inspection system as ‘serious weaknesses," THE WESTERN PRODUCER, 4 April 2002 and the massive U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of the Inspector General’s review of Food Safety and Inspection Service programs for meat and poultry products (Report Nos. 24001-3-At; 24601-1-Ch; 24099-3-Hy; and 24601-4At), June 2000.
18 | Peter Perl, "Poisoned Package," THE WASHINGTON POST, 16 January 2000; Elliot Jaspin, "Federal food inspection programs in disarray," 10 July 2002, COX NEWS SERVICE; Felicia Nestor and Patti Lovera, "Hamburger Hell: The Flip Side of USDA’s Salmonella Testing Program," GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT AND PUBLIC CITIZEN (May 2002) at http://www.citizen.org/documents/salmonellareport.PDF
19 | Digby Gascoine, "Harmonisation, Mutual Recognition and Equivalence -- How and What is Attainable" Conference on International Food Trade Beyond 2000: Science-Based Decision, Harmonization, Equivalence and Mutual Recognition, (Melbourne, Australia; 11-15 October 1999) FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION, ALICOM 99/21, para. 8.
20 | Bruce Silverglade, "Report on the Codex Committee on Food Import/Export Inspection and Certification Systems," (Perth, Australia; 11-15 December, 2000), International Association of Consumer Food Organizations, 5.
21 | "Report of the Ninth Session of the Codex Committee on Food Import and Export Inspection and Certification Systems" (Perth, Australia; 11-15 December 2000), para. 88, ALINORM 01/30A
22 | "U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Inspector General Food Safety Initiative: Meat and Poultry Products," Reports No. 240099-3-Hy (June 2000), Section III, pp. iii-iv.
23 | Robert Pear, "Food Industry’s Resistance Stalls Bill to Protect Food: Lobbyists Call Antiterror Measure Intrusive," THE NEW YORK TIMES, 16 April 2002.
24 | Larry Waterfield, "Federal judge reverses decision allowing Argentine citrus imports," THE PACKER, 8 October 2001.
25 | Ibid.
26 | "Decision on the Implementation of Article 4 of the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures," WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION, G/SPS/19, para. 1.
27 | Ibid., para. 5.
28 | "Capacity Building of the Rich Countries is a Must, if the Poor have to Gain from the WTO," report from "Standards and Market Access: The Road Ahead," a panel discussion at the Qatar International Exhibition Centre (11 November 2001), CUTS CENTRE FOR INTERNATIONAL TRADE, ECONOMICS & ENVIRONMENT at http://cuts.org/sps-event-doha.htm/
29 | Ibid.
30 | Jullyette Ukabiala, "Can the financing gap be closed: UN panels suggests new international taxes to help fund development" AFRICAN RECOVERY (December 2001), 22-23.
31 | Chandrakant Patel, "Whither Conference [sic] on Finance for Development," SUNS #5066 email edition, 8 February 2002.
32 | Deepak Gupta, "Capacity Building and Technical Assistance -- New Approaches and Building Alliances", FAO/WHO GLOBAL FORUM OF FOOD SAFETY REGULATORS (Marrakesh, Morocco; 28-30 January 2002) (GF 01/12), 3.
33 | Ibid., 4.
34 | See "Status of Contributions", FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION, Thirty-first Session (2-13 November 2001), C2001/INF/13.
35 | Gupta, "Capacity Building and Technical Assistance -- New Approaches and Building Alliances," 5.
36 | Figures supplied in personal communication from Alejandro Nadal, Colegio de México, 8 May 2001.
37 | "Implementation of the Provisions for Special and Differential Treatment", Statement by India to the WTO Committee on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures Meeting of 21-22 June 2000 (G/SPS/GEN/197: 21 July 2000).
38 | John Wilcox and Tsunehiro Otsuki, "Global Trade and Food Safety: Winners and Losers in a Fragmented System," WORLD BANK DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH GROUP (October 2001), 1.
39 | Ibid., 5.
40 | Jocelyn Kaiser, "Harvard Professor Shakes Up Regulatory Policy," SCIENCE. Vol. 294 (14 December 2001), 22277-2278.
41 | Chakravarthi Raghavan, "New NGO initiative to assist developing countries," SUNS #5041 email edition (18 January 2002).
42 | "WTO Agreements on SPS and TBT: The COMESA Viewpoint," ECONOMIQUITY (CUTS Centre for International Trade, Economics & Environment: November 2001), 4.
43 | L.F. Hagedoorn, "Support of the Netherlands to Capacity Building in Developing Countries," FAO/WHO GLOBAL FORUM OF FOOD SAFETY REGULATORS (GF 01/11).