Brussels, 26/05/2014 (Agence Europe) - The Canadian coalition TradeFairness, which defends the interest of Canadian seal hunters, has spoken out against what it describes as a “widespread misinterpretation” of the verdict returned on 23 May by the Appellate Body of the WTO in the complaint brought by Canada and Norway against the European embargo on seal products (DS 400 and DS 401 at the WTO, EUROPE 11086). “The European Union ban on seal products was not upheld; the ban must change”, the coalition insists.
“The Appellate Body's decision determined that the EU's ban is designed and applied in a manner that constitutes a 'means of arbitrary and unjustifiable discrimination'. Due to the discriminatory application of the ban, the WTO has directed the EU to change the ban to bring itself into compliance - it cannot allow imports of Inuit seal products and hunting for resource management to remain valid while banning all other seal products”, TradeFairness argues in a press release. “What the Appellate Body decision upheld yesterday is that a nation can use public morals as a justification for trade restrictions to address animal welfare concerns. However, the WTO emphasised international trade rules cannot be broken to achieve this objective and greater due diligence needs to be applied in the creation of the seal regime”, the organisation added, stressing that the Appellate Body declared at the end of its decision that the “EU has not justified the EU Seal Regime under Article XX (a) of the GATT, which sets forth the public morality justification”.
TradeFairness argues that, by allowing the sales of seal products from Inuit hunting and permitting the EU hunting/fishing community to continue hunting seals, the EU is showing that it is not “morally opposed to the killing of seals but the act of making a profit from selling wildlife derived products”. This, the coalition states, goes against the principles of the WTO and the International Union for Conservation of Nature. “In order to bring the ban into compliance with the Appellate Body decision, the EU must either decide to ban all seal products, including those harvested by Inuit and those harvested for resource management needs, or to revoke their political and discriminatory ban”, concludes TradeFairness, which welcomes the commitment of Canada and Norway to ensuring that the EU meets its obligations. (EH)