Commensalistic institutions and value conflicts: the World Trade Organization and global private food standards

TY - JOUR

T1 - Commensalistic institutions and value conflicts

T2 - the World Trade Organization and global private food standards

AU - Botterill, Linda Courtenay

AU - Daugbjerg, Carsten

PY - 2015

Y1 - 2015

N2 - An important outcome of the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations was the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement). This was set up to discipline the use of national food safety and animal and plant health regulations and to prevent their emergence as technical barriers to trade. The Agreement privileges free trade and scientific evidence, thus excluding many ethical considerations from the regulations that national governments can enact in relation to production methods in the agri-food chain. Autonomously from the SPS Agreement, a number of global private standard schemes have been developed that have incorporated values rejected by the SPS Agreement. This paper examines the relationship between the Agreement and the private standards and argues that this case highlights a gap in the institutional literature with respect to parallel institutions emerging autonomously from the primary institution to embody values excluded by the latter. We adopt the term commensalism for these previously undescribed relationships.

AB - An important outcome of the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations was the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement). This was set up to discipline the use of national food safety and animal and plant health regulations and to prevent their emergence as technical barriers to trade. The Agreement privileges free trade and scientific evidence, thus excluding many ethical considerations from the regulations that national governments can enact in relation to production methods in the agri-food chain. Autonomously from the SPS Agreement, a number of global private standard schemes have been developed that have incorporated values rejected by the SPS Agreement. This paper examines the relationship between the Agreement and the private standards and argues that this case highlights a gap in the institutional literature with respect to parallel institutions emerging autonomously from the primary institution to embody values excluded by the latter. We adopt the term commensalism for these previously undescribed relationships.

KW - food standards

KW - institutions

KW - values

KW - WTO

U2 - 10.1017/S1755773913000295

DO - 10.1017/S1755773913000295

M3 - Journal article

SN - 1755-7739

VL - 7

SP - 23

EP - 42

JO - European Political Science Review

JF - European Political Science Review

IS - 1

ER -