ABSTRACT
The European offense was its refusal to revoke a ban on the import of meat treated with growth hormones—a refusal that defied a World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling that the ban was an unfair barrier to US and Canadian beef exports. The accord that created the World Trade Organization included provisions that impose new restrictions on laws designed to protect human, animal, and plant health. The United States imposed the trade restriction after determining that Mexicans were fishing for tuna by a controversial method known as “setting nets on dolphins.” Despite the furor over the tuna-dolphin decision, in 1998 the WTO ruled against a US measure aimed at reducing unintended sea turtle mortality as a byproduct of shrimp trawling. As opposition to the WTO continues to mount, many governments are beginning to acknowledge, rhetorically at least, that reforms are needed to make the world trading system environmentally sound.
