The WTO Appellate Body has noted that the precautionary principle will be relevant to the interpretation of the WTO Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures in various ways, although the Appellate Body has declined to determine the status of the precautionary principle at international...

The de facto moratorium and product-specific measures at issue in the EC - Biotech case involved what amounted to an EC decision to impose a substantive marketing ban on all biotech products. Yet they were treated as involving only a procedural delay under Annex C(1)(A) of the SPS Agreement. The...

The WTO system is increasingly finding itself undermined by intractable disputes that involve high levels of public concern about the safety of proposed imports, in particular as seen in the EC-Hormones and the EC Approval and Marketing of Biotech Products cases. This indicates a systemic...