Over 200 groups worldwide
recently sent a letter to US President
George W. Bush's administration, protesting
what they
call "threats" he made to other
countries' sovereignty by promising not
to trade with
them under their current respective food
safety laws, it was reported..
According
to Friends of the Earth, (FOE) over 200 consumer,
farm and environmental groups worldwide (including
Friends of the Earth International) sent a letter
on August 14 to US Trade Representative Robert
B. Zoellick, Director General of the World Trade
Organization Michael Moore, and President Bush,
after the Bush adminstration reportedly challenged
the food saftey laws of Sri Lanka and Thailand
countries, along with other countries, using, "food
safety laws as challenges to world trade."
The
group called the US threats "unreasonable" in
their letter and they reportedly argued that
Sri Lanka and other nations have a scientific,
regulatory and moral basis to set limits on the
proliferation of genetically engineered organisms
(GMOs).
Sri Lanka recently initiated a ban on GMOs and
teh US threatened not to trade with them by attempting
to initate proceedings against Sri Lanka at the
World Trade Organization and urging other countries
to do the same, FOE reported. The letter calls
that action hypocritical, since states in the
US have policies concerning food safety taht
are oftentimes different from that of the federal
government.
"If a US state can have a moratorium on
genetically modified foods, why can't other countries
do the same?" Richard Navarro, Chair of
Friends of the Earth International, was quoted
as saying. "The US has no right to tell
Sri Lanka or any country how to write their food
safety laws."
Pete
Riley, of Friends of the Earth England, Wales
and Northern
Ireland was quoted as saying
the US was exercising "hypocrisy" for
dictating another country's rules in the name
of safety while siding with biotech companies
and the World Trade Organization, FOE reported.
"It is time the US government and the WTO
understood that individual companies have laws
which reflect their culture and environment and
are not merely satellites of the USA," Riley
reportedly said.
No one from Robert Zoellick's office returned
phone calls.
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