Safe trade

Last updated

Safe trade is a slogan advocated by Greenpeace in its desire to "green" the World Trade Organization and the Doha Development Round. It is designed to compete with "free trade" as a concept.

Safe trade is generally seen as a single framework of rules worldwide to drastically inhibit the flow of alien organisms (e.g. Genetically modified organisms, imported animals) across the borders of ecoregions, to preserve their natural wild biodiversity. It seeks to prevent ecological disasters caused by imported organisms or untested genetic technologies, and to augment and increase local natural capital by encouraging soil remediation, precision agriculture, and local consumption of the native species, rather than imported organisms and heavy use of pesticides.

Proposal

An important achievement of safe trade advocacy is the Biosafety Protocol agreed in Montreal in January 2000. Although it relied on the weaker legal principle of Informed Consent and not the much stronger Precautionary Principle language sought by advocates, the protocol was considered by most to be a victory that could enhance both biosafety and biosecurity.

Other safe trade reforms seek to advance sustainability by reducing reliance on energy subsidies and oil-based transport, and (indirectly) improves equity in economic affairs - that is, it promotes a safer political economy which is more respectful of life in general.

Safe trade is a major goal of systems of Bioregional democracy and is often advocated alongside it, e.g. by Greens. Both are also implicitly related to Community-Based Economics, as local trade in local goods with no reliance on alien organisms presents no ecological risk to its genomes, soil, or drainage basins. Accordingly, some advocates argue, local trade in any native species within an ecoregion's borders should not be taxed at all, as it presents little or no ecological risk compared to imported goods, and so requires little or no regulation, labelling, inspection, or other expenses.

The assumption that imports carry moral hazards, and that tax, trade, tariff measures should compensate for harms done, is shared by advocates of fair trade whose programs address, in addition, more overt social justice concerns of human beings, such as the maintenance of the "human capital" of a region. Both initiatives are alternatives to free trade, which has no such controls, and generally permits and encourages free transit in goods (but not, in general, labour) across ecological and social borders.

A broader understanding of biosecurity that is emerging under threat of biological warfare, and the fear that such economically devastating events as the mad cow disease epidemic could recur, either deliberately (as an act of bioterrorism) or by accident due to unrestricted imports, is causing some nations, notably New Zealand, to adopt relatively harsh restrictions against imported organisms. As one objective of asymmetric warfare is to cause attacks to appear initially as accidents, or blame slow responses on apparently incompetent governments, there is some concern that spreading a virulent organism among animals would be an effective way to attack humans, damage economies, and discredit governments who are lax on biosecurity. Technologies for scanning for dangerous organisms at ports and markets are also becoming more reliable and less expensive. However, no bio-defense solution seems to be able to compete with a simple reduction of import volumes, and its corresponding reduction in risk of any accidents.

Reception

Opposition

Critics of safe trade argue that the military and agriculture aspects of biosecurity are dissimilar, unlikely to converge in the form of an attack disguised as an accident, and require such differential prevention and response measures that there is little risk reduced in altering the fundamental structure of trade relationships to accommodate a robust regime of biosecurity. Such critics usually argue instead that emergency services' biodefense measures are sufficient to handle outbreaks of any diseases or alien organisms, and that such outbreaks are unlikely to be long sustained or deliberately masked as agricultural accidents. This, to the advocates, seems like wishful thinking.

Support

Advocates point to the costs of emergency measures such as burning over one million cows suspected of having foot-and-mouth disease in the UK, smoke from which they calculated (based on dioxin levels) was to be expected to kill several hundred Britons from cancers in this generation. Safe trade, they argue, would have removed the need for any such measures, as vaccination of British beef cattle would have been possible (the burning was to prevent British exports of beef from being rejected by its trade partners, who would not have been able to tell vaccinated from infected beef), and the foot-and-mouth disease was not so dangerous to humans that it could have justified dooming so many fellow citizens to die of the dioxin-caused cancers. The burning, they argue, was justified only by bad trade rules that spread infection and advise dangerous cures that are worse than the ailment itself.

Another argument supporting safe trade rules is that there are links between primate extinction and deforestation in the regions where primates are abundant, i.e. the Amazon rainforest, African rainforest, and Sumatran rainforest. Fail to prevent devastating logging in these regions, advocates claim, and a Great Ape species will likely become extinct, causing a critical link to the human past to be permanently lost. Accordingly, preventing logs from these forests from reaching foreign markets has been a major focus of Greenpeace actions, especially in 2002.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Biosafety</span> Prevention of large-scale loss of biological integrity

Biosafety is the prevention of large-scale loss of biological integrity, focusing both on ecology and human health. These prevention mechanisms include the conduction of regular reviews of biosafety in laboratory settings, as well as strict guidelines to follow. Biosafety is used to protect from harmful incidents. Many laboratories handling biohazards employ an ongoing risk management assessment and enforcement process for biosafety. Failures to follow such protocols can lead to increased risk of exposure to biohazards or pathogens. Human error and poor technique contribute to unnecessary exposure and compromise the best safeguards set into place for protection.

Biosecurity refers to measures aimed at preventing the introduction and/or spread of harmful organisms intentionally or unintentionally outside their native range and/or within new environments. In agriculture, these measures are aimed at protecting food crops and livestock from pests, invasive species, and other organisms not conducive to the welfare of the human population. The term includes biological threats to people, including those from pandemic diseases and bioterrorism. The definition has sometimes been broadened to embrace other concepts, and it is used for different purposes in different contexts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety</span> 2003 international agreement on biosafety

The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the Convention on Biological Diversity is an international agreement on biosafety as a supplement to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) effective since 2003. The Biosafety Protocol seeks to protect biological diversity from the potential risks posed by genetically modified organisms resulting from modern biotechnology.

The precautionary principle is a broad epistemological, philosophical and legal approach to innovations with potential for causing harm when extensive scientific knowledge on the matter is lacking. It emphasizes caution, pausing and review before leaping into new innovations that may prove disastrous. Critics argue that it is vague, self-cancelling, unscientific and an obstacle to progress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Biosafety level</span> Level of the biocontainment precautions required to isolate dangerous biological agents

A biosafety level (BSL), or pathogen/protection level, is a set of biocontainment precautions required to isolate dangerous biological agents in an enclosed laboratory facility. The levels of containment range from the lowest biosafety level 1 (BSL-1) to the highest at level 4 (BSL-4). In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have specified these levels in a publication referred to as BMBL. In the European Union, the same biosafety levels are defined in a directive. In Canada the four levels are known as Containment Levels. Facilities with these designations are also sometimes given as P1 through P4, as in the term P3 laboratory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Biological hazard</span> Biological material that poses serious risks to the health of living organisms

A biological hazard, or biohazard, is a biological substance that poses a threat to the health of living organisms, primarily humans. This could include a sample of a microorganism, virus or toxin that can adversely affect human health. A biohazard could also be a substance harmful to other living beings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Agricultural policy</span> Laws relating to domestic agriculture and foreign-imported agricultural products

Agricultural policy describes a set of laws relating to domestic agriculture and imports of foreign agricultural products. Governments usually implement agricultural policies with the goal of achieving a specific outcome in the domestic agricultural product markets.

Good agricultural practice (GAP) is a certification system for agriculture, specifying procedures that must be implemented to create food for consumers or further processing that is safe and wholesome, using sustainable methods. While there are numerous competing definitions of what methods constitute good agricultural practice, there are several broadly accepted schemes that producers can adhere too.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Toxic waste</span> Any unwanted material which can cause harm

Toxic waste is any unwanted material in all forms that can cause harm. Mostly generated by industry, consumer products like televisions, computers, and phones contain toxic chemicals that can pollute the air and contaminate soil and water. Disposing of such waste is a major public health issue.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Biocontainment</span> Physical containment of pathogenic organisms or agents in microbiology laboratories

One use of the concept of biocontainment is related to laboratory biosafety and pertains to microbiology laboratories in which the physical containment of pathogenic organisms or agents is required, usually by isolation in environmentally and biologically secure cabinets or rooms, to prevent accidental infection of workers or release into the surrounding community during scientific research.

The Beef Hormone Dispute is one of the most intractable agricultural controversies since the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dioxins and dioxin-like compounds</span> Class of chemical compounds

Dioxins and dioxin-like compounds (DLCs) are a group of chemical compounds that are persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in the environment. They are mostly by-products of burning or various industrial processes or, in the case of dioxin-like PCBs and PBBs, unwanted minor components of intentionally produced mixtures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Agbogbloshie</span> Suburb near Accra, Ghana, known for its e-waste dump issues

Agbogbloshie is a nickname of a commercial district on the Korle Lagoon of the Odaw River, near the center of Accra, Ghana's capital city in the Greater Accra region. Near the slum called "Old Fadama", the Agbogbloshie site became known as a destination for externally generated automobile and electronic scrap collected from mostly the western world. It was a center of a legal and illegal exportation network for the environmental dumping of electronic waste (e-waste) from industrialized nations. The Basel Action Network, a small NGO based in Seattle, has referred to Agbogbloshie as a "digital dumping ground", where they allege millions of tons of e-waste are processed each year.

Biosecurity in New Zealand guards against threats to agriculture and biodiversity, with strict border control measures being taken to prevent unwanted organisms from entering the country. New Zealand is an island nation that is geographically isolated from any other significant landmass. The species that are present evolved in the absence of organisms from elsewhere and display a high degree of endemism. Notable is the lack of land-based mammals, except for two species of bat. Indigenous species are at risk from population decline or extinction if any invasive species are introduced.

National biosecurity in Australia is governed and administered by two federal government departments, the Department of Health and the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. The Biosecurity Act 2015 (C'wealth) and related legislation is administered by the two departments and manages biosecurity risks at the national border. The Act aims to manage biosecurity risks to human health, agriculture, native flora and fauna and the environment. It also covers Australia's international rights and obligations, and lists specific diseases which are contagious and capable of causing severe harm to human health. Each state and territory has additional legislation and protocols to cover biosecurity in their jurisdiction (post-border) including the detection of pests and diseases that have breached the national border.

Biosecurity in the United States is governed by the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, which is part of the US Department of State. It obtains guidance and advice on specific matters relating to biosecurity from various other government agencies.

Pest risk analysis (PRA) is a form of risk analysis conducted by regulatory plant health authorities to identify the appropriate phytosanitary measures required to protect plant resources against new or emerging pests and regulated pests of plants or plant products. Specifically pest risk analysis is a term used within the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) and is defined within the glossary of phytosanitary terms. as "the process of evaluating biological or other scientific and economic evidence to determine whether an organism is a pest, whether it should be regulated, and the strength of any phytosanitary measures to be taken against it". In a phytosanitary context, the term plant pest, or simply pest, refers to any species, strain or biotype of plant, animal or pathogenic agent injurious to plants or plant products and includes plant pathogenic bacteria, fungi, fungus-like organisms, viruses and virus like organisms, as well as insects, mites, nematodes and weeds.

The hazards of synthetic biology include biosafety hazards to workers and the public, biosecurity hazards stemming from deliberate engineering of organisms to cause harm, and hazards to the environment. The biosafety hazards are similar to those for existing fields of biotechnology, mainly exposure to pathogens and toxic chemicals; however, novel synthetic organisms may have novel risks. For biosecurity, there is concern that synthetic or redesigned organisms could theoretically be used for bioterrorism. Potential biosecurity risks include recreating known pathogens from scratch, engineering existing pathogens to be more dangerous, and engineering microbes to produce harmful biochemicals. Lastly, environmental hazards include adverse effects on biodiversity and ecosystem services, including potential changes to land use resulting from agricultural use of synthetic organisms.

Pandemic prevention is the organization and management of preventive measures against pandemics. Those include measures to reduce causes of new infectious diseases and measures to prevent outbreaks and epidemics from becoming pandemics.

<i>Biosecurity Act 2015</i> Australian law

The Biosecurity Act 2015 is an Act of the Parliament of Australia which manages biosecurity risks in Australia. It was enacted on 16 June 2015, after the Bill was passed with bipartisan support on 14 May 2015. It covers both agricultural and human medical biosecurity risks, including epidemics and pandemics, and is designed to contain and/or deal with any "diseases and pests that may cause harm to human, animal or plant health or the environment" in Australia.