GMO deregulation may breach international law

Pro­pos­als to relax EU GMO laws could vio­late inter­na­tion­al law, accord­ing to a new legal opin­ion from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Freiburg (Ger­many). The planned EU leg­is­la­tion on “new genom­ic tech­niques” (NGT) may be incom­pat­i­ble with the Biosafe­ty Pro­to­col of the UN Con­ven­tion on Bio­log­i­cal Diver­si­ty. To achieve com­pli­ance, the draft law would need sig­nif­i­cant amend­ments.

The opin­ion by inter­na­tion­al law expert Dr. Sil­ja Vöneky, com­mis­sioned by the Ger­man Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, urges the EU to align its new rules with its inter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions to main­tain the biosafe­ty stan­dards of the Pro­to­col. It rec­om­mends: “To ensure com­pli­ance, a future EU reg­u­la­tion should main­tain noti­fi­ca­tion and doc­u­men­ta­tion require­ments for NGT 1 plants under the con­di­tions set out in the Carta­ge­na Pro­to­col; and it should require label­ing of all NGT 1 plants and their prod­ucts, which includes the oblig­a­tion to ensure their trace­abil­i­ty with­in the EU.”

The Carta­ge­na Pro­to­col on Biosafe­ty is a legal­ly bind­ing inter­na­tion­al agree­ment that reg­u­lates the trans­bound­ary move­ment of Liv­ing Mod­i­fied Organ­isms (LMOs). As a sup­ple­men­tary pro­to­col to the UN Con­ven­tion on Bio­log­i­cal Diver­si­ty (CBD), it aims to pro­tect bio­di­ver­si­ty and human health. The EU and its mem­ber states are Par­ties to the Carta­ge­na Pro­to­col.

Ear­li­er, sev­er­al oth­er legal experts had high­light­ed the EU proposal’s poten­tial incom­pat­i­bil­i­ty with the Carta­ge­na Pro­to­col. Among them were the French law firm Artemisia and the Ger­man firm Gaßn­er, Groth, Sieder­er & Coll. Green­peace also warned that the pro­pos­al could con­sti­tute a breach of the EU’s inter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions.

Last year, the Hun­gar­i­an EU Pres­i­den­cy had sug­gest­ed to clar­i­fy these open legal ques­tions. How­ev­er, only a few coun­tries sup­port­ed such a move, includ­ing Aus­tria, Latvia, Roma­nia and Slove­nia. Oth­er coun­tries, such as Den­mark, Swe­den and the Nether­lands, saw no con­flict between the EU pro­pos­al and the Carta­ge­na Pro­to­col. The EU Com­mis­sion had repeat­ed­ly con­firmed the com­pat­i­bil­i­ty with the pro­to­col, they claimed.

Save Our Seeds is call­ing on the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion, the Coun­cil of Min­is­ters and the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment to review the legal experts’ find­ings and incor­po­rate them into their pro­pos­als. Oth­er­wise, the Euro­pean Court of Jus­tice may have to annul the leg­is­la­tion. This would be a severe blow for the EU and its defence of democ­ra­cy and the rule of law.

Image: © Uni­ver­si­ty of Freiburg, Insti­tute for Ger­man, Euro­pean and Inter­na­tion­al Pub­lic Law