In the tuna/dolphin conflict, the EU took the US to the GATT panel which returned a ruling saying that the US embargo on tuna products is illegal in accordance with the GATT. Now, the US is threatening the EU with a GATT complaint designed to stop the EU ban on fur imports. Isn’t this the same conflict, but in reverse? The positions are switched ... isn’t this a bit odd? the High North News asked Chris Marcich at the office of US Trade Representative Mikey Kantor. Yes, it has its odd aspects, Marcich admits, But the cases are slightly different. The EU trapping regulation is a pure animal welfare issue, while the tuna/dolphin was a conservation issue.

You say was , notes the High North News, Would you say that it still is in the light of the work done by the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission to reduce by-catches of dolphins?

Well, at present, Marcich answered, most experts seem to agree that the by-catches of dolphins in the Eastern Tropical Pacific tune fisheries are so low that it is not a conservation issue any more. But it was some years ago.

The US has so far vetoed the implementation of the GATT Panel’s ruling on the tuna/dolphin issue in the GATT council. Marcich states that the US under certain circumstances would be willing to allow an adoption of the Panel’s ruling.

Popular Laws
In a letter to Kantor, a group of 21 environmental and animal welfare organisations warm that the same GATT/WTO pressures wielded by the US against the EU Leghold Trap Regulation could be used to dismantle our own popular federal laws, including the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the High Seas Drift Nets Act, the African Elephant Conservation Act and the Wild Bird Protection Act.