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This is a paper about cattle and their calves. It tells two stories
highlighting recent controversies over the manner in which these animals are
reared, and the quality of the meat, which they produce. The theme of the paper
is trade and environment, with the latter being broadly conceived to include
animal welfare and public health issues.
The first of these bovine
case studies begins by examining issues surrounding the export of live veal
calves in the European Union. This highlights questions of Community law,
exemplifying in a Community context the theme which has formed the focus for
the trade/environment debate in international law. This is often conceived in
the language of 'extra-territoriality'. The GATT/WTO approach to this issue
will be examined in the context of the recent 'shrimp' reports of a GATT panel
and WTO Appellate Body. The second case study considers the Community's
'hormones' regime and its associated prohibition on the importation of beef
from cattle to which hormones have been administered for fattening purposes.
This focuses upon the WTO Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and
Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement), and the manner in which this has been
construed in recent panel reports, and at the hands of WTO Appellate Body,
While this is a paper about trade and environment it does not purport to
be comprehensive. The aim of the paper is neither to provide an exhaustive
exposition of the rules applicable in the two legal orders under consideration,
nor to present an exhaustive comparative survey. Its aims are more modest. It
seeks merely to highlight a small number of the important legal questions
arising in the sphere of trade and environment at a rime of rapid evolution in
European and international approaches to free trade. The cases under discussion
highlight a number of complex and contested issues, relating in particular to
the scope of environmental exceptions to free trade, and the nature of the
evidence which may be heard in seeking to justify a departure from the rules
seeking to guarantee free movement. Particularly significant in this respect is
the extent to which states may restrict free movement on the basis of a threat
which does not (or at least cannot be demonstrated to do so) find physical
expression in the territory of the state adopting the measure. This question
arises both in the context of measures with an 'extra-territorial' effect, and
also as a result of the 'scientization' of dispute settlement under the WTO, as
evidenced principally by the SPS.
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