UN talks produced rules governing trade in genetically engineered products on the weekend, nearly a year after previous talks collapsed in the face of international discord.
Saturday's agreement requires member nations to label international shipments that contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs) such as corn or cotton. It does not, however, dictate that products on supermarket shelves must be labelled if they contain GMOs.
The protocol is intended to protect the environment from damage due to genetically modified organisms. Environmentalists and some scientists worry that bioengineered plants, animals and bacteria could wipe out native strains or spread their genetic advantages to weeds and other undesirable species.
Officials with Taiwan's Council of Agriculture and the Department of Health were unavailable for comment yesterday as to how the new agreement would affect Taiwan. Taiwan is not a member of the UN-sponsored pact. But the central government could decide to abide by its terms, and will have to if it wishes to export products containing GMOs to member nations.
Delegates in Montreal hailed the agreement as a resounding success.
"All the other agreements on endangered species, CFCs (chloro-fluorocarbons, which destroy the ozone layer), toxic chemicals and hazardous waste all tried to deal with something after you knew it was a problem," one European diplomat said after the deal was signed. "This is different. It's trying to look forward."
The new agreement on products containing genetically modified organisms came after a week of intense negotiations that pitted the United States and its five allies in the talks -- Canada, Australia, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay -- against the European Union and a coalition of developing nations. As demonstrators stood outside in single-digit temperatures chanting "Hey, ho, GMOs have got to go,'' negotiators worked until just before dawn to hammer out the final details.
Countries or regions like the EU, which set up a labeling system for genetically modified products, can keep their regulations. The deal foresees helping developing nations set up their own regulatory systems.
The fear of exporters like Canada and the US, which produce two-thirds of the world's genetically altered crops, is that the environmental protections will be used as a cover for trade barriers.
A first attempt to draw up the protocol ended last February in Cartagena, Colombia, when the US and its five partners blocked an agreement that was acceptable to the other 125 countries.
On Saturday, US negotiators said they were satisfied with the final agreement.
"The agreement that we achieved is a very substantial improvement over the agreement we started with,'' US undersecretary of state for global affairs Frank Loy said.
The political situation changed in the last year, with major US food producers either demanding that genetically modified products be segregated from other products or refusing to use them altogether.
And protests at the WTO talks in Seattle last month also suggested that the American public has concerns about genetically altered food.
EU negotiators, whose constituency strongly opposes genetic modifications in food, used the changed climate to exact a number of concessions from the US delegation.
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