ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a case study to show how health and sanitary regulations may be used as a protective trade measure. In the early 1980s the governments of the United Kingdom and France engaged in a lengthy skirmish to protect their poultry farmers from cross-Channel imports. The chapter describes a single event in a series of trade retaliations that took place during that period. Poultry farmers in the United Kingdom became aware of their growing inability to compete with the French. The French poultry exporters moved quickly in order to comply with the new regulations but the regulations continued to be used by the United Kingdom to restrict imports; the case was therefore taken to the European Court of Justice early in 1982. The chapter examines comparative cost structures in poultry farming in the two countries with a view to assessing the trade distortions caused by technical and other barriers to trade in poultry.
