This from today's Wall St. Journal:
"EU Executive Arm
Endorses Labels
On 'Humane' Food
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
January 24, 2006; Page A19
BRUSSELS – A special label should be applied to poultry, beef, pork and fish produced by "humane" farming methods to encourage European grocery shoppers to buy it, the European Union's policy-making arm said.
The proposed food label is part of a five-year EU plan to promote animal welfare. In addition to encouraging consumers to buy free-range chicken and other products with minimal agricultural processing, the EU aims to reduce the use of animals in medical and product-safety tests and develop more scientific methods for gauging animals' well-being."
Let's focus on the humane farming label. The EU, if it implements this Commission proposal, will have to justify its system under WTO law. If the proposal is implented as a voluntary scheme, whereby those who farm humanely are encouraged to label their goods accordingly, it is difficult to imagine a successful challenge. If the proposal is implemented as a mandatory regulation, perhaps requiring inhumanely produced meat to be labeled as such, it will raise the product-process distinction issue under Article III of GATT. If it is understood as a product standard--establishing technical regulations under the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade--it will raise further issues. These issues will include the question of whether it is "more trade-restrictive than necessary to fulfil a legitimate objective, taking account of the risks non-fulfilment would create" (Art. 2.2).
