Regulating Global Giants: Analyzing the Regulatory Processes of the United States and the European Union by: Andrea Meier

          With the emergence of an increasingly rapid and equally controversial market the modern world has changed the ways in which it regulates genetically modified (GM) foods.  Operating under the fields of biotechnology, agriculture, and public policy, the genetic modification of foods in the United States and Europe has created stark differences in the ways by which these countries regulate food safety. As a result of recent changes in the politics of risk regulation one must note the historical changes that have placed these nations on opposite’s sides of the genetically modified food spectrum.

The policing of health and safety risks in the US from the 1960s to the mid 1980s was significantly more stringent than in Europe. However, since such a time the opposite has been the case. It has been noted that European regulatory politics and policies (regarding those governing genetically modified organisms (GMOs)) over the last fifteen years resembles those of the United States between the late 1960s and the mid 1980s. Such regulatory politics are often described as very argumentative and are often suspicious of science and mistrust government and industry. In contrast the regulation of GMOs in the United States is comparable to that of Europe’s regulations of the 1970s in that regulators work in conjunction with industry and have been supportive of technological innovation. A curious and ironic way by which these nations have chosen to regulate relatively identical technologies, but in a very dissimilar fashion (1).

The regulation of agricultural products produced by biotechnology in the US began quite cautiously and was viewed by many as problematic. The United States federal government faced two critical issues: determining if the government possessed sufficient legal authority to regulate biotechnology and if regulation should govern the process of the product as opposed to the product itself.  The National Research Council concluded that “the product of genetic modification and selection constitutes the primary basis for decisions and not the process by which the product was obtained,", making it the new basis for regulatory policy in the US.  In 1984 the federal government implemented and created a Biotechnology Science Coordinating Committee (BSCC) and named the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), FDA, and the USDA as the three primary sources of regulation over biotechnology. 

                            

A year after the establishment of the US’s BSCC the European Union created the Biotechnology Regulations Inter Service Committee (BRIC). As opposed to the US the EU produced a Deliberate Release Directive (1990) concerning the release of GMOs into the environment and chose a process rather than product-oriented approach. This directive granted members of the EU to restrict or prohibit the sale of a product if they deemed it a risk to human health and or the environment (3). An example of the differences between the EU and the US when concerning their efforts to biotechnology can be seen in the way the trade association EuroCommerce and other food retailers responded to the US export of genetically modified soybeans in 1996. The EuroCommerce demanded separation between genetically modified and conventional soybeans and in other EU nations such as Germany food producers cancelled its order for 650,000 metric tons of soybeans unless they could be guaranteed to contain no genetic modification. This occurrence enacted increased demands for the labeling of GMOs foods sold within the EU (4). As a result of such examples increased public concern and kicked off efforts across the EU to restrict the GMOs entering their nations.

As public concern about genetically modified foods became an increasing disquiet throughout the EU (1990s- present), public opposition towards such foods in turn stimulated the restrictions and regulations enacted. Cabinet-level committee’s, protests, and referendums boomed throughout Europe during this time (5). Monsato (American based supplier of genetically modified seeds in the US- and potentially those sold in Europe as well) became the hated by the public. To redeem its image and the stigma of genetically engineered food Monsato spent $1.6 million on an advertising campaign in the UK and France in 1998. The common phrase “you can’t buy the peoples vote” is appropriate when discussing this particular example in that Monsato’s campaign failed horribly. Before the campaigning efforts began consumers in the UK participated in a survey that expressed that 44% of those surveyed held negative opinions regarding GMOs and by the end it rose to 51%. The same occurred in France but by a smaller margin (6).

            Through great efforts by the public a shift in the dynamics of regulatory policy-making at the national level has resolutely created political policy competitiveness within the EU so as to respond to public pressures by issuing standards that better protect public health and the environment. US law treats environmental and health hazards from GMOs with no difference than it would with any other food production technology. The EU on the other hand has established a strict set of requirements with distinct regulatory restrictions for the consideration of any GMO. Despite negative attacks on the use of GMOs in the United States it is crucial to highlight that in recent years the United States has not experienced any major regulatory failures equivalent to those seen in Europe i.e. Mad Cow disease. As the EU is still trying to implement a regulatory institution for the entire union the United States has significantly strong set of regulatory bodies (7).  Differences on regulation, legislation, and public policy between the US and EU are as striking as they seem it is important to note that regardless of the regulatory regime’s participating there would be no action taken with out the public objection of the people consuming. A purely public effort at its roots, the case of the US and the EU allow us to analyze two distinctly different cases with what appears to be two distinctly different motives. 

References: 

1. Burger, Edward J.  "American Exceptionalism and the Political Acknowledgement of Risk," in Risk ed. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993, p. 66. 

2. Kilman, Scott, Cooper, Helen “Crop Blight: Monsanto Falls Flat Trying to Sell Europe on Bioengineered Food." The Wall Street Journal (1999).

3. Lively, Sarah 23 Nw. J. Int'l L. & Bus. ABCs and NTBs of GMOs: The Great European Union-United States Trade Debate - Do European Restrictions on the Trade of Genetically Modified Organisms Violate Internaitonal Trade Law, The. 23 Nw. J. Int'l L. & Bus. 239 (2002-2003)

4. Maitland, Alison"European News Digest: Call for Ban on Biotech Beans," Financial Times, October 8, 1996: 2. 

5. National Research Council, Field Testing Genetically Modified Organisms: Framework for Decisions (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1989)

6. Petersmann , Ernst-Ulrich Prevention and Settlement of International Trade Disputes between the European Union and the United States; 8 Tul. J. Int'l & Comp. L. 233 (2000)

7. Sheldon, Ian M. Regulation of biotechnology: will we ever ‘freely’ trade GMOs?

Eur Rev Agric Econ (2002) 29(1): 155-176 doi:10.1093/erae/29.1.155