American Meat Institute Tells U.S. Trade Representative that Mandatory Country-of-Origin Labeling Violates International Trade Obligations
Friday, January 8, 2010
Washington,
The comments were provided in response
to a December 4, 2009, Federal Register
Notice.
In comments, AMI Senior Vice President of
Regulatory Affairs and General Counsel Mark
Dopp said that equitable enforcement of
international trade rules is a high priority
for everyone and that all too often,
market access for U.S. meat products has been
threatened or cut off with little or no
legitimate justification.
“American challenges to these actions have
been based upon the rights provided under
international trade agreements. These
challenges will continue, as demonstrated by a
recent limitation to an important market for
beef. Critical to the
COOL is inconsistent with trade agreements
because of its discriminatory effect on
imported meat and imported live
animals. The U.S. must ensure that
the products of other countries “imported
into the territory of [the United States]…be
accorded treatment no less favorable than that
accorded to like products of [U.S.] origin in
respect of all laws…affecting their internal
sale.”
According to Dopp, COOL affects the internal
sale of meat derived from foreign animals in
the
“The result is that COOL is de
facto discrimination against foreign
products, a result even contemplated by
sponsors of the legislation who declared that
it would be ‘helpful to a lot of American
agricultural producers’ and force companies
to rely ‘on our independent producers here in
this country,’” according to
Dopp.
COOL also is not consistent
with the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to
Trade (TBT). The TBT Agreement
specifically governs any technical regulation
which, like COOL, “deal[s] exclusively
with…marking or labeling requirements as they
apply to a product.” The TBT Agreement
requires that the
First, the Codex General Standard for
the Labeling of Prepackaged Foods provides that
“when a food undergoes processing in a second
country which changes its nature, the country
in which the processing is performed shall be
considered to be the country of origin for the
purposes of labeling.” COOL does not meet
this international standard, Dopp said.
In addition, the Codex General Standard
provides that “the country of origin of the
food shall be declared if its omission would
mislead or deceive the consumer.” The
U.S. Government, however, has never claimed
that customers were misled or
deceived.
Second, the WTO Rules of Origin Agreement
stipulates that the final harmonization work
program must determine a country of origin as
“the country where the last substantial
transformation has been carried out.”
COOL, however, denies
COOL also violates the TBT agreement by
creating unnecessary obstacles to international
trade. Its non-trade objectives
are minimal, and COOL does not have as an
objective protecting “human health or safety,
animal or plant life or health, or the
environment.”
“Indeed, the U.S. Government has
repeatedly stated that COOL ‘is not a food
safety or animal health measure. Likewise, COOL
is not a ‘national security requirement’
nor does COOL have as its purpose preventing
‘deceptive practices.’ Neither sponsors of
the legislation nor U.S. Government agencies
have made such a claim,” Dopp said.
The stated objective of COOL is to
provide ‘consumer information,’ but AMS
found that the “expected benefits from
implementation of this rule are difficult to
quantify. In fact, the agency concluded that
that the economic benefits will be small and
will accrue mainly to those consumers who
desire country of origin information and that
all available evidence shows that “consumers
do not have a strong preference for country of
origin labeling.”
“In a number of cases meat packers have
chosen either to cease buying imported
livestock – an extreme trade restriction –
or have confined the processing of imported
livestock to limited dates and times. These
practices, in turn, have significantly
restricted trade,” Dopp
wrote.
In addition, to be consistent with GATT,
COOL must be administered uniformly and
reasonably. But according to Dopp,
“COOL applies only to “covered
commodities” and not to a host of products
such as turkey, processed foods, etc.
and, therefore, is not consistent,” he
said. Reasonableness requires that
the administration of laws be
“proportionate” and “appropriate” and,
comparing the significant costs imposed on the
To read the complete comments,
click here: http://www.meatinstitute.org/ht/a/GetDocumentAction/i/56354

