I've always thought that, in theory, import safety and global trade rules shouldn't come into conflict, and that many of the suggestions to the effect that WTO rules restrict what governments can do are exaggerated. On the other hand, in practice, things can be more complicated, and maybe there is something to at least some of the concerns.
Perhaps even more difficult than compatibility with trade rules, though, is implementing safety regulations that are effective in a globalized world. Here's a new book that addresses these issues:
Import Safety: Regulatory Governance in the Global Economy (Cary Coglianese, Adam Finkel, and David Zaring, editors)
On World Food Day in October 2008, former president Bill Clinton finally accepted decade-old criticism directed at his administration's pursuit of free-trade deals with little regard for food safety, child labor, or workers' rights. "We all blew it, including me when I was president. We blew it. We were wrong to believe that food was like some other product in international trade." Clinton's public admission came at a time when consumers in the United States were hearing unsettling stories about contaminated food, toys, and medical products from China, and the first real calls were being made for more regulation of imported products. Import Safety comes at a moment when public interest is engaged with the subject and the government is receptive to the idea of consumer protections that were not instituted when many of the Clinton era's free-trade pacts were drafted.
Written by leading scholars and analysts, the chapters in Import Safety provide background and policy guidance on improving consumer safety in imported food, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and toys and other products aimed at children. Together, they consider whether policymakers should approach import safety issues through better funding of traditional interventions--such as regulatory oversight and product liability--or whether this problem poses a different kind of governance challenge, requiring wholly new methods.
From a Q & A with one of the editors:
Q: In the U.S., we’re accustomed to dealing with safety issues in domestic products, whether through regulation, recalls, or litigation. But you suggest that the systems we’ve created to address domestic product safety issues are inadequate to solve the safety challenges that result from globalization. Why is that?
A: Although consumers can be harmed just as much by domestic products as by imports, the import safety problem raises a variety of jurisdiction, legal, cultural, political and practical issues that are not present with domestically produced products and their regulation. In the past, most consumer products have come from manufacturers based in the same country and jurisdiction as the consumers who are buying those products and might ultimately be harmed by them. With globalization, the regulatory challenge is much more difficult. We can’t rely on recalls, since that only captures a small portion of safety problems, and of course only after some damage may already have occurred. Given the sheer volume of imported goods, we can’t rely on inspections, since regulators can’t inspect even a small portion of imported products. And we can’t rely on private litigation, in part because the courts’ authority can’t always reach manufacturers abroad. In many cases, just identifying the producers of ingredients and products in other countries poses daunting challenges.
