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Beef ban not against
WTO rules: source
RULES-BASED: A WHO official said Taiwan was
within its rights to not proceed with planned changes in food safety
regulations, a decision it informed the WTO about
By Shih Hsiu-chuan / Staff Reporter
A researcher puts a meat sample
in a machine to test if it contains a banned additive, ractopamine, at a
laboratory in Taipei yesterday.
Photo: AFP
Taiwan has neither broken any WTO rules
nor breached any commitments by failing to go ahead with a plan to establish
maximum residue levels for the livestock feed additive ractopamine, of which the
organization was first notified in 2007, a WTO official said.
ˇ§The point of notifying the WTO about such measures is transparency and peer
review, so that other governments know what measures are being taken and why,
and to allow them to comment,ˇ¨ the official, who asked to remain anonymous in
accordance with WTO staff rules, said in an e-mail reply to an enquiry from the
Taipei Times on Friday.
As part of a plan to pressure Taiwan into lifting its ban on imports of US beef
containing ractopamine residues, Washington has been urging Taiwan to honor WTO
commitments made in 2007 by the then-Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)
government, which it said was based on a notification sent to the WTO on Aug. 16
of that year.
In defense of its plan to partially lift the ban, described by the US as a
ˇ§stumbling blockˇ¨ in bilateral relations, President Ma Ying-jeouˇ¦s (°¨^¤E)
administration has adopted a similar position to that of the US, saying the
issue is a problem caused by the DPP in 2007 and would render Taiwan a
ˇ§unreliable trading partnerˇ¨ if the ban continued.
However, the view expressed by the WTO official on the policy reversal in 2007
explicitly contradicted that position.
According to WTO documents, the then-DPP government notified the WTO that Taiwan
intended to adopt maximum residue levels for ractopmaine for the muscle, fat,
liver and kidney of cattle and pigs, in line with the draft maximum residue
levels recommended by the Codex Alimentarius Commission, with a provisional
proposed adoption date of Aug. 22, 2007.
Following domestic protest against lifting the ban, the DPP government submitted
an addendum to the notification dated Sept. 5, 2007, to the WTO, saying the date
on which the maximum residue levels would come into force ˇ§has been delayed
until a time to be decided at a later date.ˇ¨
Taiwan had the legal right to decide not to proceed with planned changes in food
safety regulations, a decision of which the WTO was informed, and was not in
violation of any rules for not implementing the notification, the official said.
The official explained the nature of notification measures used to require WTO
members to implement transparency obligations under the Agreement on the
Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, also known as the SPS
agreement.
The SPS agreement allows WTO members to set their own level of sanitary and
phytosanitary protection in relation to quarantine and food safety, but also
requires that countries make their rulemaking process transparent by notifying
the WTO ˇ§well before the entry into force of relevant measures.ˇ¨
The procedural step-by-step manual, a practical guide for governments to
facilitate the implementation of transparency provisions in the SPS agreement,
recommends that a standard time limit for comments on notification of at least
60 days be allowed before a measure is finalized for adoption.
Considering the nature of the notifying measures, a WTO notification is not the
same as a WTO commitment, the official said.
Under the SPS agreement, countries are also required to make available the
scientific basis for specific phytosanitary regulations to interested parties
upon request.
ˇ§Since this is a notification about allowing ractopamine [but within set
limits], by withdrawing its measure Chinese Taipei might find itself having to
explain to other members why it is continuing with the ban,ˇ¨ the official said.
According to a WTO Trade Policy Review of Taiwan, Taipei informed the
organization that the government was in ongoing consultations with a view to
formulating a ractopamine management policy as various stakeholders hold
different opinions and farmers particularly are strongly opposed to establishing
maximum residue levels on ractopamine.
In response to concerns expressed about the issue at an SPS committee meeting in
2008, Taiwan has said that the use of ractopamine is forbidden by many WTO
members and that the Codex Alimentarius Commission had also been unable to reach
a final decision on MRLs for ractopamine, the trade policy review showed.
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