1 For an extensive discussion on the relationship between trade liberalization, economic growth and poverty reduction, see Peter Van den Bossche, The Law and Policy of the World Trade Organization. Text Cases and Materials 11-19 (Cambridge University Press 2005).Google Scholar

2 The operation of the Standard Code adopted during the Tokyo Round is generally perceived as a failure, see e.g. David Victor, The Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement of the WTO: An Assessment after five Years, 32 N.Y.U.J. Int'l L. & Pol. 865, 874 (2000).Google Scholar

3 Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, 15 April 1994, Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization, Annex 1A, available at http://www.wto.org [hereinafter SPS Agreement].Google Scholar

4 The SPS Agreement applies to measures, which may, directly or indirectly, affect international trade, intended for the protection, within the territory of the importing Member State, of the life and health of people, animals, and plants from certain specified SPS risks.Google Scholar

5 Appellate Body Report, European Communities – Measures Concerning Meat and Meat Products, WT/DS26/AB/R, WT/DS48/AB/R (adopted 13 February 1998) [hereinafter EC-Hormones], footnote 172, referring to the ordinary meaning of the word “scientific.”Google Scholar

6 Panel Report, Japan – Measures Affecting the Importation of Apples, WT/DS245/R (adopted 10 December 2003) [hereinafter Panel Japan-Apples], para. 8.92.Google Scholar

7 Jacqueline Peel, Risk Regulation under the WTO SPS Agreement: Science as an International Normative Yardstick? (Jean Monnet, Working Paper 2002/04) footnote 213.Google Scholar

8 Appellate Body Report, Japan–Measures Affecting Agriculture Products, WT/DS76/AB/R, (adopted 19 March 1999) [hereinafter Japan-Agriculture Products], para. 73-74.Google Scholar

9 Id.Google Scholar

10 Appellate Body Report, Japan – Measures Affecting the Importation of Apples, WT/DS245/AB/R (adopted 10 December 2003) [hereinafter Japan-Apples], para. 164.Google Scholar

11 Japan-Agriculture Products supra note 8, para. 84.Google Scholar

12 Japan-Apples supra note 10, para. 164.Google Scholar

13 EC-Hormones supra note 5, para. 124.Google Scholar

14 Id., para. 180.Google Scholar

15 Japan-Agriculture Products supra note 8, para. 82.Google Scholar

16 Panel Report, Australia – Measures Affecting Importing of Salmon, WT/DS18/R (adopted 6 November 1998) [hereinafter Panel Australia-Salmon], para. 8.52.Google Scholar

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18 Japan-Agriculture Products supra note 8, para. 250.Google Scholar

19 See review of the panel analysis by the Appellate Body in Japan-Apples supra note 10, para. 164.Google Scholar

20 SPS Agreement, supra note 3, Article 3.3.Google Scholar

21 The appellant's (EC) submission in the EC-Hormones case, para. 88.Google Scholar

22 EC-Hormones supra note 5, para. 176.Google Scholar

23 Id., para. 175.Google Scholar

24 Japan–Agriculture Products supra note 8, para. 79.Google Scholar

25 See Appellate Body Report, United States – Standards for Reformulated and Conventional Gasoline, WT/DS2/AB/R (adopted 20 May 1996) para. 23.Google Scholar

26 The Presidential/Congressional Commission on Risk Assessment and Risk Management 1 Framework for Environmental, Health Risk Management 1 (1997).Google Scholar

27 Leiss, William, Three Phases in the Evolution of Risk Communication Practice, 545 Annals 85, 86 (1996).Google Scholar

28 Panel Report, EC - Measures Concerning Meat and Meat Products (Hormones) complaint by the United States, WT/DS26/R/USA (adopted 13 February 1998) [hereinafter Panel EC-Hormones (US)], para. 8.94.Google Scholar

29 Id.Google Scholar

30 Id., para. 8.160.Google Scholar

31 EC-Hormones supra note 5, para. 181.Google Scholar

32 Peel supra note 7, at 66; similarly Robert Howse, Democracy, Science and Free Trade - Risk Regulation on Trial at the WTO, 98 Mich. L. Rev. 2329, 2343 (1999-2000).Google Scholar

33 SPS Agreement supra note 3, Annex A, para. 4.Google Scholar

34 Id.Google Scholar

35 Australia-Salmon supra note 17, para. 12.Google Scholar

36 Id.Google Scholar

37 Panel Japan-Apples supra note 6, para. 8.283; that finding was subsequently upheld by the AB.Google Scholar

38 Panel EC-Hormones supra note 28, para. 8.98; although, the AB said that the “utility of a two-step analysis may be debated” it also admitted that “it does not appear … to be substantially wrong,” see EC-Hormones supra note 5, para. 184.Google Scholar

39 SPS Agreement supra note 3, Article 5.2.Google Scholar

40 EC-Hormones supra note 5, para. 187.Google Scholar

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42 Australia-Salmon supra note 17, footnote 70.Google Scholar

43 The AB said in a different case that the ordinary meaning of “potential” relates to “possibility”; see EC-Hormones supra note 5, para. 184.Google Scholar

44 Australia-Salmon supra note 17, para. 123.Google Scholar

45 Id.Google Scholar

46 EC-Hormones supra note 5, para. 186; Australia-Salmon supra note 17, para. 124.Google Scholar

47 David R. Hurst, Hormones: European Communities – Measures Affecting Meat and Meat, 11 (available at http://www.ejil.org/journal/Vol9/No1/sr1g.rtf last visited 25 May 2005); see, however, discussion in the Section B.III.2.c) of this article.Google Scholar

48 EC-Hormones supra note 5, para. 186.Google Scholar

49 Japan-Apples supra note 10, para. 241.Google Scholar

50 A way out from this inconsistency is to simply disregard the distinction made by the AB between “potential” and “likelihood” and apply uniform standard of “potential” to both categories of risk assessment.Google Scholar

51 EC-Hormones supra note 5, para. 187.Google Scholar

52 Id.Google Scholar

53 Id.Google Scholar

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57 The AB upheld this finding.Google Scholar

58 Japan-Apples supra note 10, para. 200.Google Scholar

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61 EC-Hormones supra note 5, para. 198.Google Scholar

62 According to the AB, a member state is not obliged to conduct its own risk assessment; an assessment may be carried out by another country or international organization and only used by the particular member; see EC-Hormones supra note 5, para. 190.Google Scholar

63 Id., para. 189.Google Scholar

64 Id.Google Scholar

65 Id., para. 192.Google Scholar

66 Id., para. 194; see also Japan–Agriculture Products supra note 8, para. 79 where the AB characterized in a similar way the relationship existing between the scientific information and the SPS measure under Article 3.3 of the SPS Agreement.Google Scholar

67 Panel Australia-Salmon supra note 16, para. 8.98.Google Scholar

68 For a more detailed discussion, see Section B.I. of this article.Google Scholar

69 See Section B.V. for the discussion on the implication of those findings for the right of a Member State to adopt an appropriate level of protection.Google Scholar

70 Hurst supra note 47, at 16; same Bloche supra note 56, at 837.Google Scholar

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73 EC-Hormones supra note 5, para. 194.Google Scholar

74 Id.Google Scholar

75 Id., para. 198, rejecting the opinion of Dr. Lucier.Google Scholar

76 Bloche supra note 56, at 83.Google Scholar

77 McNiel, Dale E., The First Case Under the WTO's Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement: The European Union's Hormone Ban, 39 Va. J. Int'l L 89, 125, at 119 (1998).Google Scholar

78 Hurst supra note 47, at 12 basing his argument on the AB statement that by itself reliance on a minority viewpoint does not necessary signal the absence of reasonable relationship.Google Scholar

79 Peel supra note 7, at 71.Google Scholar

80 Sykes supra note 60, at 366.Google Scholar

81 Japan-Agriculture Products supra note 8, para. 80.Google Scholar

82 Panel Report, Japan – Measures Affecting Agriculture Products, WT/DS76/R (adopted 19 March 1999), paras. 4.187, 8.48.Google Scholar

83 Id., para. 8.58, the panel particularly said that “we consider, therefore, that the United States has established a presumption that Japan did not comply with the requirements in the second sentence of Article 5.7. We also consider that Japan has not been able to rebut this presumption.”Google Scholar

84 Japan-Apples supra note 10, para. 175.Google Scholar

85 See Japan-Agriculture Products supra note 8, para. 89; Japan-Apples supra note 10, para. 176.Google Scholar

86 Japan-Apples supra note 10, para. 179.Google Scholar

87 Id., para. 185.Google Scholar

88 Id., para. 184.Google Scholar

89 Australia-Salmon supra note 17, para. 130.Google Scholar

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92 SPS Agreement supra note 3, Article 5.7.Google Scholar

93 Japan-Agriculture Products supra note 8, para. 92.Google Scholar

94 Id., para. 93.Google Scholar

95 Id.Google Scholar

96 Winickoff, Jasanoff, Busch, Grove-White & Wynn, supra note 91, at 115-16.Google Scholar

97 EC-Hormones supra note 5, para. 124.Google Scholar

98 Australia-Salmon supra note 17, para. 125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

99 Peel supra note 7, at 14.Google Scholar

100 The negligible risk was defined by one of the experts in the Japan-Apple case as the “likelihood of between zero and one in a million,” see Panel Japan-Apples supra note 6, Annex 3, para. 332.Google Scholar

101 But see Panel Japan-Apples supra note 6, para. 4.64, where the U.S. observed that “in describing the risk of transmission as ‘negligible’ rather than ‘zero’, the scientific reports merely reflected ‘the uncertainty that theoretically always remains [that an event may occur] since science can never provide absolute certainty’ that an event may never occur.”Google Scholar

102 Atik supra note 17, at 753.Google Scholar

103 Fraiberg, Jeremy & Trebilcock, Michael J., Risk Regulation: Technocratic and Democratic Tools for Regulatory Reform, 43 McGill L.J. 835, 863 (1998).Google Scholar

104 EC-Hormones supra note 5, para. 186.Google Scholar

105 Atik supra note 17, at 749.Google Scholar

106 EC-Hormones supra note 5, para 187.Google Scholar

107 Id., para 124.Google Scholar

108 Note, however, that the introduction of a proportionality test regarding risk and an SPS measure may indicate that the case law tends to require a more substantial relationship.Google Scholar

109 Article 19.2 of the Understanding and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes as incorporated by the Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization, 15 April 1994 available at http://www.wto.org [hereinafter DSU].Google Scholar