‘Right to know, right to choose’: Biotechnology products and transatlantic civil society networks

In Chapter 2 we discussed the Transatlantic Business Dialogue and the Transatlantic Economic Partnership. These networks were created in the mid-to late 1990s to encourage and facilitate transatlantic trade liberalisation. In the agbiotech sector, pre-market safety assessment was the only significant regulatory issue acknowledged by TABD. When the TEP was created, it took the same view. These networks therefore sought to ensure that the EU and the US adopted the same regulatory standards for safety assessment in an effort to avoid trade barriers. This exclusive focus on pre-market safety assessment continued until the regulatory debate was complicated by the backlash against biotechnology products in Europe.