WTO tribunal ruled for Mexico against the U.S.: ‘Dolphin Safe Tuna’ labels are illegal

[cali]

This occurred 3 years ago, but I wasn't aware of it until yesterday when I read a piece by Jim Hightower. So I went digging. It looks like the COOL beef labeling ruling follows a pattern, gutting U.S. consumer protection/information labeling.

Let's be crystal clear: Those pushing the despicable lies about how concern over the ISDS in the TPP, is bogus, are lying or ignorant as dirt. The ISDS is similar to but worse than the WTO dispute system. And yeah, Secretary Kerry and the President, to put it respectfully, are on the wrong side of this debate and the wrong side of history. Period. Full Fucking Stop.


—A World Trade Organization tribunal in Geneva, Switzerland ruled yesterday, September 15, that the U.S. labeling system intended to prevent dolphins from being killed by commercial fishing nets violates international law protecting “free trade.”

For years, the United States has authorized the placement of “dolphin safe” labels on tuna packaging, so that consumers can be assured their tuna is not harvested using nets that kill dolphins by the multitude. Many Mexican commercial fishing operations refuse to abide by these “dolphin safe” practices. As a result, Mexico sued the United States, not in U.S. courts which have upheld the U.S. tuna labeling system, but before a corporate-dominated international tribunal. The tribunal decided that the U.S. labeling system, which does not ban tuna from Mexico, unnecessarily restricts international trade in violation of WTO law.

William Waren, trade policy analyst at Friends of the Earth, had the following statement:

“If this decision is allowed to stand, the U.S. will be forced to roll back its labeling system or face retaliatory sanctions such as higher tariffs that worsen unemployment. The U.S. may choose to appeal the decision, but why did the United States agree in the first place to an international trade pact that allows corporate-dominated tribunals to decide U.S. environmental policy?

“The U.S. dolphin safe labeling system helps consumers avoid goods produced using unsafe practices, which are employed by much of the Mexican tuna fishing fleet. Placing observers on ships, as is now the Mexican practice, is not an adequate safeguard. Mexican fishing ships find tuna by following dolphins that swim with tuna. The ships use dangerous purse seine nets that encircle both the dolphins and tuna. This can result in unobserved side effects such as severe stress on dolphins caused by repeated chase-downs, encirclement and entanglement in nets. Mothers and calves can be separated. Lactating females can be killed. This is not a trivial issue: the dolphins’ reproductive success and survival is threatened by these practices.

“This is not an isolated international trade ruling, and this is not an unusual problem resulting from international trade and investment agreements. The WTO pact, NAFTA and subsequent trade agreements are binding on the United States and contain many provisions that put the profits of multinational corporations ahead of the public interest and the environment. And now, the Obama administration is asking Congress to approve new trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and Korea — all of which would take power from American citizens and put it in the hands of multinational corporations instead. Congress must reject these anti-democratic, anti-environment trade agreements.”

- See more at: http://www.foe.org/news/archives/2011-09-wto-rules-that-dolphin-safe-tuna-labels-are-illegal#sthash.bbH6VAtE.dpuf

From Reuters:

WTO rules against U.S. "dolphin safe" tuna
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/16/us-usa-mexico-trade-idUSBRE84F1EY20120516

More:

Today's ruling follows a string of recent WTO rulings against popular U.S. consumer and environmental policies. In May 2012, the WTO ruled against voluntary "dolphin-safe" tuna labels that, by allowing consumers to choose to buy tuna caught without dolphin-killing fishing practices, have helped to dramatically reduce dolphin deaths. In April 2012, the WTO ruled against a U.S. ban on clove-, candy- and chocolate-flavored cigarettes, enacted to curb youth smoking. In each of those cases, U.S. policy changes made to comply with the WTO's decisions also have been challenged before WTO panels similar to the one that issued today's ruling. - See more at: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/10/12635/world-trade-organization-rules-against-popular-us-country-origin-meat-labels#sthash.u0JD1M61.dpuf

[cali]

1. more

<snip>

The decades-old tuna dispute centers on harvesting methods in an area of the Pacific Ocean that covers roughly 7 million square miles from southern California to South America. Schools of tuna congregate there under schools of dolphins.

Over the years, millions of dolphins died as fishermen chased them with large nets to capture the tuna swimming underneath them. Because of the public outcry, Congress passed the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972, prohibiting U.S. fishermen from using fishing methods that killed dolphins. And 18 years later, Congress passed the Dolphin Protection Consumer Information Act, which resulted in the dolphin-safe labels.

After Mexico complained that the law discriminated against its fishing industry, the WTO’s dispute-settlement body ruled that the labels were unnecessarily restrictive on trade. That infuriated critics, who said Mexico should change its tuna-harvesting practices instead of trying to change the U.S. law.

While the issue “may not be one that gets a lot of attention,” Larsen said, it’s of concern to commercial fishermen and the recreational tuna-fishing industry in his home state. Fishermen in Washington state have harvested albacore tuna commercially for more than 100 years, catching up to 9,300 tons each year, according to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/11/28/175797/as-trade-rulings-against-us-mount.html#storylink=cpy

[CBGLuthier]

2. I am starting to think that the WTO needs to FO.

[cali]

3. I think making some changes is a better alternative

[Enthusiast]

4. This is deeply disturbing. What has the President said about this? Hillary?

[Ford_Prefect]

5. Wonder what the Hillary group-think-tank says defending this one. It should be a tongue-twister.

How does one defend this while still working for future of the "common good". After the Bees, Butterflies and Dolphins are gone where will the flour come from to make the cake we will be told to eat? Oh, right: Monsanto!

[shaayecanaan]

6. this article is not true

The WTO did not rule that dolphin safe tuna was illegal. The previous standards for dolphin safe tuna focused almost entirely on the eastern tropical pacific (ie Mexican fishing grounds). Tuna from elsewhere could qualify as dolphin safe based on voluntary assurances.

The WTO Said that I his effectively amounted to discrimination against mexico. To comply with the decision, the US had to expand their compliance regime worldwide, or cease the dolphin safe labelling scheme.

As can be seen from the fact that dolphin safe tuna is still available for purchase, the us chose the former option.

[Hoyt]

9. Thanks. The junk people post as fact here . . . . . .

Last edited Sat May 23, 2015, 11:06 AM - Edit history (1)

[shaayecanaan]

10. no problems

and thanks for the post below, which I xplaons things a bit more fully.

[Pooka Fey]

7. "WTO rules against U.S. "dolphin safe" tuna"

Fuck that noise.

[Hoyt]

8. The issue is whether Mexico's tuna fishing is dolphin safe. They use observers on the boat

to certify dolphins were not injured. American ships get away with the ship's captain certifying it. Prohibiting Mexican tuna from using the dolphin safe label is discrimination, if in fact their tuna is as dolphin safe ad ours.

In any event, the WTO ruling doesn't make the dolphin safe labelling "illegal." More bunk and gross distortion.

http://thehill.com/regulation/238782-wto-sides-with-mexico-in-dolphin-safe-tuna-dispute

"Mexico argued the agreements cut dolphin deaths to minimal levels - below the thresholds allowed in U.S. fisheries - and that tuna from other regions does not face the same stringent tests, with ship captains allowed to self-certify that no dolphins were harmed."
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0N51IW20150414

"Known as “setting on dolphins,” the practice of circling dolphin pods with nets as a way to catch tuna was widely criticized for harming dolphin populations up through the 1980s. But that was before the creation of the International Dolphin Conservation Program, which places observers on tuna vessels to verify that no dolphins are harmed during the catch. Since then, dolphin mortality from this practice has virtually disappeared.

In order to qualify as dolphin-safe, tuna may not be caught using this method regardless of whether dolphins are actually harmed. Even if this method isn’t used, tuna caught in the eastern tropical Pacific may only be called dolphin-safe if an independent observer verifies that no dolphins were harmed. Tuna caught elsewhere in the world can be called dolphin-safe based merely on a declaration from the ship’s operator."

http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2015/04/29/dolphin-safe-labels-on-canned-tuna-are-a-fraud/