- The start of the consultation request is presented to the WTO
- Regulating U.S. “Dolphin Safe” impedes the full commercialization of the product in that country
Washington, July 5 .- The tuna dispute, which remains unsolved after 19 years it was started by a judge in San Francisco, returned to the radar on the agenda of unresolved problems between Mexico and United States, following the Mexican complaint before the WTO.
Representatives of both governments in recent days had contacts at the ministerial level, with the intention of the White House to move the complaint to the World Trade Organization (WTO) at the Free Trade Agreement for North America (NAFTA).
The start of the consultation request was filed by Mexico to the WTO under the administration of former President George W. Bush. last October.
However, it was during the current administration of President Barack Obama, which led to the interest of Washington that Mexico withdraw the complaint from the multilateral scope and move it to the bilateral.
The trade representative of the White House (USTR), Ron Kirk, said recently that the tuna issue raised by Mexico to the WTO “should be clearly resolved in the context of NAFTA and its dispute resolution mechanism” .
“Mexico believes that the proper forum is the WTO, we believe strongly that NAFTA should be, and I do not see an inherent conflict in which United States follow the settlement through NAFTA, which we believe is the most appropriate forum,” Kirk emphasized.
Kirk, who announced last week a complaint with the WTO against China for alleged restrictions on exports of raw materials, denied that there is a double standard in seeking to resolve the dispute with China in the WTO, while that of Mexico before the NAFTA.
The Trade Representative Obama insisted that the U.S. agreement is the best forum to litigate the issue tuna.
However, several countries joined the process in Geneva, initiated by Mexico to the WTO, which was seen as confirmation of the multilateral nature of the item tuna.
While the tuna embargo initiated in 1991 were repealed in 1997, the U.S. regulatory “Dolphin Safe” (Dolphin Safe) prevents the full commercialization of the product in United States.
Mexico’s complaint before the WTO arguing that the very regulation that prohibits placing the label to tuna caught by seine nets in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, creates unnecessary obstacles to trade and incentive depredate ecosystems.
The label is statutory since 1990, in response to the tens of thousands of dolphins accidentally caught in tuna nets.
But since the past decade, Mexico implemented an international program of tuna and dolphin conservation has reduced the killing of this species at “biologically insignificant” according to the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC).
Under the program, tuna fishermen rescued by their own hands the dolphins that are accidentally caught in the nets and returned to the sea in the presence of international observers assigned.
During 2008, 92 percent of sets on tunas associated with dolphins did not cause death or serious injury of dolphins, and total mortality of dolphins in the fishery has declined from around 132 thousand (132,000)in 1986 to about 120 hundred (1,200) in 2008, representing 0.01 percent of the population, according to the IATTC.
In contrast, alternative methods of tuna fishing apparatus known as aggregators Fish (FADS) has been identified by the collateral death of other marine species, according to environmental groups which is harmful to these species and their ecosystems.
Although United States sought unsuccessfully to block the installation in March of the arbitration panel, the WTO proceeded with its habilitation in April, even though the outcome could take months.
Despite the consultations, so far the Mexican government has shown no sign of intending to withdraw their complaint before the WTO and move it to NAFTA.
In another year-long dispute, the border agreement of NAFTA, Mexico began implementing tariffs on goods valued at two thousand $ 400 million since March, at the failure of Washington to the terms of the sector
The tuna dispute within the WTO could take over an additional year before a final solution.
