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Press Briefing by the U.S. Delegation Sixth Meeting of the Working Group on Biosafety, Convention on Biological Diversity Cartagena, Colombia, February 18, 1999

(Note: Interpretations occurred from English to Spanish and Spanish to English.)

Melinda Kimble, Acting Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, U.S. Department of State: We are going to try to begin our press briefing now. We're sorry to be a little late, but a lot of things have been happening this morning and the plenary went to after midnight last night.

My name is Melinda Kimble. I am now the head of the U.S. delegation and I'd like my colleagues from the left to the right to introduce themselves and their roles in the delegation, starting with Eric.

Eric Flamm, Food and Drug Administration: I'm Eric Flamm. I'm from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Mary McLeod, U.S. Department of State: I'm Mary McLeod, from the U.S. Department of State.

Rafe Pomerance, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, and Alternate Head of U.S. Delegation: I'm Rafe Pomerance, alternate head of our delegation.

Michael Schechtman, U.S. Department of Agriculture: I'm Michael Schechtman from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Kimble: I think it is important to understand that the United States Government takes this negotiation very seriously. We believe the objectives of this negotiation are very important and we certainly support firmly the approach to protecting biological diversity. We have worked on this Protocol over a two-year period in a very committed and constructive manner, and I think it is important to understand that we believe there are two issues here that can be addressed creatively through this negotiation. First and foremost, we can protect biologic diversity. We can ensure the continuation and use of new technology, which people call biotechnology in this negotiation. And we can also assure that international trade continues.

The United States is committed to ensuring that all international agreements complement, rather than cause problems with each other. And so we think that's possible certainly to do in this negotiation, and we're committed to solving all the problems that people have pointed out could arise from various proposals on the table. I would like to turn the mike over to my colleague, Mr. Pomerance, because he has been running the delegation for most of the last week and most of the beginning of this week, and he will outline some of our key proposals.

Pomerance: Thank you, Melinda. As Melinda Kimble mentioned, we have two over-riding goals here. One is to protect biodiversity; the other is to ensure that we do not unduly restrict trade in extremely important products. In order to do that, there are two or three central debates in this negotiation that I'd like to point out to you. The first provision that I'm sure you know by now is known as the Advance Informed Agreement (AIA). This is the key provision for protecting biodiversity. It is here that we believe that the central risk to biodiversity can be addressed by ensuring that any genetically modified organisms contained in products that are deliberately introduced into the environment are subject to advanced informed agreement. We have placed our emphasis to ensure that biodiversity is protected on a provision that would require exporters to gain the permission of importers for products that were being introduced into the environment, like seeds or products for field testing, or fish--categories like that. Some have argued that the number of products covered by this Advance Informed Agreement should be much broader. In our view, if countries -- as they may, as sovereign nations -- wish to place increased import notification requirements, restrictions, or permits on other genetically modified organisms, they can do that as a domestic, unilateral measure.

The second provision that we regard as extremely important, perhaps the most important provision, aside from the AIA, is a global regime of information sharing. We believe that many of the issues that have been raised concerning these products can be answered if timely information is available to governments, non-governmental organizations or consumers.

Let me make one final point. This is an extremely important negotiation because we are dealing with the manner in which the world's food supply, or much of the world's food supply, will be traded. Our delegation is completely committed to ensuring that the trade in food products is moved efficiently, smoothly, and at low cost. And we are working in the negotiations to ensure that those objectives are accomplished.

Kimble: We would now like to take your questions. If you would come to the microphone in the center and identify yourself and your organization.

Adam Thompson, "Financial Times": I'd just like some clarification as to your point of view on derivatives, or "products derived from" GMOs (genetically modified organisms). I wasn't quite sure about that. I mean with regard to whether they should be included in the Protocol.

Pomerance: Our position in the negotiations--let me back up a second--the mandate for these negotiations was established two or three years ago in Jakarta in Indonesia. And at that time we had a long negotiation about what we should be focused on here. And products thereof, as we call them, were not in the mandate. They were excluded. And therefore we don't really think that's a subject that's appropriate for this negotiation. And the reason why the mandate is important is that this negotiation could be about ten or 12 big issues. What it's really supposed to be about is the protection of biodiversity. So, in addition, products derived from GMOs are, to say the least, (of) extremely low risk to biodiversity. It is possible that as a result of providing information on living modified organisms, that when risk assessments are done and information is provided, much information is provided about potential products. So there is a way for governments and consumers to get information about that as the result of an information sharing mechanism. But we certainly are adamantly opposed to any requirement that would subject products thereof to Advance Informed Agreement. In fact, I don't think there's much support left in these negotiations for that. There was some coming in, but it's, in general, pretty much diminished almost to zero.

Carlos Alberto Sourdis, "El Tiempo" (Colombia): Is the United States delegation willing to step out of the negotiations if harsh restrictions are placed on international trade in these items? And as a follow-up, what would be the conditions that might cause the United States delegation to leave these negotiations?

Kimble: Let me say right at the outset that I do not believe that there is a condition on which the United States would step out of these negotiations at this stage. These negotiations are proceeding in a very positive direction. More and more countries are narrowing the scope of their thinking, focusing on the need to protect biological diversity...that an agreement can be achieved that will protect the environment, and ensure the continued free flow of trade.

Antonio Martinez, EFE: You sound very optimistic, but we all know that there are many parts of the Protocol that are still in brackets, and that there's much of the text that's on the sidelines that's not in full agreement among all. Do you really believe that in the next 36 hours that you have left you will be able to achieve what you have not in four years?

Kimble: Well, that's certainly a challenge for all of us. But let me say that first of all, United Nations negotiations have been known to run overtime -- 12 hours, one day. So we still have some time on the weekend, I expect. And I would point to the fact that the Chairman of this conference, Mr. Veit Koester, has taken many of the key issues into his own hands, and is working with a number of delegations to develop compromise solutions for key areas of the text. So we will see what happens. The United States in this negotiation is to support an approach that leads to an outcome that will be a good agreement supporting the objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity and supporting the interests of everyone in the world to have effective, efficient, and safe international trade.

Ivonne Malaver, "El Tiempo": If you have such interest in protecting biodiversity, why is it that the United States has not signed the Convention?

Kimble: Actually the United States has signed the Biological Diversity Convention. We have not been able to ratify the Biological Diversity Convention. In fact, the United States has been unable to ratify a number of international conventions, in part because of domestic considerations. But when we signed the Biological Diversity Convention, in our report to the Senate, we made clear our support for the objectives of the Convention. And we notified all the parties of our intent domestically to preserve and protect biological diversity as required under the Convention in the United States. And we continue to not only do that, but to provide technical assistance for the protection of biological diversity throughout the world.

Malaver: I would like to know what are those domestic considerations that the United States has that don't allow it to ratify?

Kimble: A number of United States non-governmental organizations and a number of individual communities in the United States are concerned about the provisions of the Biological Diversity Convention, and how they might affect private property rights. And these organizations have asked the Senate not to ratify the Convention, and the Senate has not taken up the Convention as a consequence.

Pomerance: Let me just add one element to Assistant Secretary Kimble's answer. When we sent the papers forward to the Senate for what's called "advice and consent" -- when they by two-thirds majority have to approve a treaty -- our analysis of the treaty was the United States was already in compliance with all provisions. We needed no new legislation...that through the many laws and practices and institutions in the United States, we were already in compliance with all the provisions.

Ricardo Moldonado, Associated Press: I would like to know if the United States is willing to accept the provision on responsibility offered by Greenpeace. That is that if a biologically modified organism "goes bad," and gets loose, if the United States is willing to accept responsibility?

Pomerance: I'm not a liability lawyer. I have someone to my left who is a little closer to that than I am. But normally issues of liability in products are handled by domestic liability regimes. International regimes that have been advocated by some are extremely rare and very difficult to negotiate. So typically a problem like that would fall under a domestic process.

Moldonado: My second question then is I would like to have some dollar figures. How much is the amount of U.S. sales in biologically modified organisms? How much does this mean to the United States?

Kimble: Let me turn this over for the moment to our representative from the Department of Agriculture and then we'll also have our rep from the Food and Drug Administration perhaps comment.

Schechtman: I'm not sure that I can give you specific dollar numbers, but I can give you some idea in terms of the volume of crops that are being developed in the United States that are genetically modified, that are in commercial use at this time. My recollection is that as of this time, approximately a quarter of all the corn, maize, that's grown in the United States is genetically modified. Something on the order of, I believe, 40 percent of the soybeans that are grown in the United States at this time are genetically modified, a similar number for the cotton, and a few percent of the potatoes that are grown in the United States are genetically modified. I don't know specifically how to translate those acreages into dollars.

Kimble: We'll try to get you some more specific data. It is true that the United States exports, in total export volume, around 60 billion dollars in agricultural products. Obviously, you can kind of make a rough estimate from the percentages we gave you from our corn and soybean estimates.

Bette Hileman, "Chemical and Engineering News": I have two questions. Do you think that risk to human health, or to socio-economic systems, should be considered under the risk assessments done under the Protocol? And the second question is -- if a country decides to have more restrictive barriers to trade than are included under the Protocol, would this be fought under the World Trade Organization and probably overruled?

Kimble: Let me just make one general point, and I'll ask several members of my delegation if they'd like to add further comments. We have been working on protecting human health internationally for more than 50 years through the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization and the World Health Organization. We have a body called the Codex Alimentarius which sets food safety standards for international trade. This has been a successful regime for a long time, and it continues to be successful. This Protocol is about protecting the environment from risks that might be related to releasing living modified organisms into the environment and how those organisms...might affect biological diversity. We believe that we should use all the international instruments available to address specifically the concerns about human health, rather than just this Protocol. And I'll ask Rafe Pomerance to comment further.

Pomerance: Just briefly, this Protocol, this Convention, has the goal of protecting biodiversity. It's not an institution designed to deal with public health or human health issues. As Assistant Secretary Kimble has mentioned, there are a range of international institutions and agreements designed to do that already. Many countries have urged that we address issues like health and socio-economic concerns that are really outside the mandate of the negotiations. And that's our position, that they're outside the mandate and not appropriate to be addressed in there. We are willing to work with other negotiators to try to find solutions, but ones that carefully protect the mandate that we have here, and that limit the amount, limit the focus, because the Convention on Biodiversity is a very fragile instrument. It doesn't have a great deal of resources associated with it. And at Rio what we were trying to do was focus the world on the protection of biological diversity, and that's the agenda we want to stick to here. If we diversify the agenda, we will lose the focus on biological diversity and biological diversity is disappearing at a rapid rate throughout the planet. So that's the first point. Second point on the trade issue -- we believe this agreement should, ought to be and can be consistent and complementary to other international agreements, including the World Trade Organization. And we would hope and expect that conflicts could be resolved within this agreement. I'd leave it at that.

Marta Morales, "El Espectador" (Colombia): One reason that supports the use of genetically modified organisms is food security, and until now, 70 percent of these genetically modified products are resistant to herbicides...Don't you think then, that this would be another supporting reason--the protection of food supply?...Is your motivation one of economics or public health?

Schechtman: I think our answer to that is that these are all parts of the general motivation. It's quite clear that as the world's population increases, there are going to be greater and greater demands to be producing food in the world, and the amount of arable land, for example, is not increasing, in fact, if anything it's diminishing. So that all of the world's farmers will need to farm not only more safely, but smarter. In addition, if that doesn't happen, it's very clear that many more marginal lands, and lands that have a large number of species that we particularly care about under this process, may become farm land, and that's obviously not a desirable end -- so that we need to be able to use all of the technologies that we can safely use to be able to meet the needs of the world's growing population. But with all that, I would just add that the products that are developed of course go through a careful examination process by regulatory officials -- as well as by the traditional process of crop breeders and the traditional breeding processes -- to ensure that they behave in the way that farmers depend on them to behave.

Max Henriquez, Association of National (Colombian) Environmental Reporters: The question is going to the head of delegation. We get the idea from listening to the U.S. position in international fora that there are two sides to its position in almost every case, a private and a public. The Convention on Biological Diversity supports that idea. That the U.S. position is not that of private industry. That also there are one set of laws for the United States and its domestic concerns, and another set of laws for the world. This position is often criticized and is expressed as a double standard and has application in things that are enforced now in Colombia, and we would like you to respond to that view.

Kimble: I think it is a misperception to believe that the United States is promoting a double standard. We believe that our regulatory regimes set standards, particularly for human health and safety, that are standards that can be adopted all over the world, should countries choose to adopt them. We also believe that the best way to regulate is to set strong national standards. We do not believe that is inconsistent with agreeing, at an international level, to work toward protecting biological diversity, protecting human health, or advancing the goals of free trade. We believe all these can be accommodated, both through domestic law, and through appropriate international regimes. Thank you very much.

[end of document]

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