The Terminator Threat
The 8th meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity starts tomorrow and the issue of GURTs (Genetic Use Restriction Technologies) will be one of the most contentious issues to be addressed by the Conference of the Parties. For those of you not familiar with the term GURTs, GURTs is a technology designated to render seeds sterile at harvest (see UNEP/CBD/WG8j/4INF/18 for more information). GURTs are commonly known as the Terminator Seeds. The LMOs industry argues that they were created with the purpose of avoiding genetic contamination from LMOs to non-LMOs, but that has been proven to be a cover for the real interest of the industry. As we saw last week during the MOP, the industry is willing to do anything to protect their interest and the Terminator seeds are part of that strategy. The seed industry designed the terminator seeds with the purpose of protecting their patents, not of protecting the environment from genetic pollution. Scientist have studied the sterilization model of GURTS and have found that it is not 100% efficient at avoiding contamination. The Terminator seeds force farmers to buy their seeds from the industry every season at the monopoly prices, creating a dependency unseen in our food systems. Terminator seeds are a threat to agricultural biodiversity and global food security, especially for small farmers and peasants. The COP8 MUST BAN TERMINATOR SEEDS.
Please see Ban Terminator Campaign, Biosafety Information Centre, ETC Group, EcoNexus or Gene Watch UK for more information. Join the global campaign to stop the industry from playing with our food!
The youth at the COP8 will be meeting on Monday at 4pm at the civil society forum to plan ways to protect our generation from this threat. Stay tuned for updates!
posted by Juan Hoffmaister at 2:58 PM
2 Comments:
Hi Juan, and everybody,
(I thought I included this with my earlier comments under Elsie's Saturday blog entry, but I must have done something wrong, so here it is again. Probably better to post it separately, anyway.)
Check this out with Ken or other legal advisers, but it seems to me that a good way to attack the "terminator seed" technology might be via a tort strategy. Clearly a preemptive ban would be best, but this threat is so significant that alternate countermeasures need to be ready to go.
If attempts at preemptive bans fail, it seems likely that that the harmful effects of Monsanto's technology will occur gradually, and that there will be a strategically important period of time between its initial use and the point where truly catastrophic damage takes place. During that period, there will be increasing incidents of limited damage. And "real life" examples of damage can sometimes be more useful than even the best theoretical arguments.
For example, Monsanto should be put on notice that, in cases where their "terminator" technology passes to unintended "victim" crops (e.g. through pollination), they (Monsanto) will be sued for damages, actual, consequential, and punitive, the magnitude of which could easily cripple or destroy Monsanto itself.
I think work should begin at once on devising and preparing the legal strategies, monitoring capabilities, etc, to implement such a plan (as an alternative). Monsanto stockholders should also be alerted to the situation. Such activity would demonstrate seriousness of intent, dramatize and publicize the danger, and prepare the way for timely action in case legislative efforts fail.
We mustn't lose sight of the fact that the motivation for this environmental threat, as with most others, is purely monetary. Anything that promises to render these schemes profitless (or worse) can kill them just as effectively as a legislative or regulatory ban.
Recent experience has shown clearly how courts can be effective where legislatures are not (tobacco comes to mind), and I think this is an alternative which should at least be talked about and explored.
Randy Taylor
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Thanks, Henry, for that informative and thoughtful examination of the possible use of the courts against "terminator".
I'm very pleased to hear about the new work on "international liability regimes", which I wasn't yet aware of (there's so much to keep up with!). The old-fashioned tort strategy might still work in places like the US and Canada, which may well be where the first "guinea pigs" will be located, given the international uproar over this, and the widespread anti-US sentiments. Also, it sounds like it might take a while to get the new liability regimes up and running, and we may not have that much time.
I think one might try using some of the tobacco litigation as a blueprint, or at least a starting point for thought and planning. And yes, I'm afraid that actual cases of damage will be needed in order to stand a good chance of winning in court, and not just arguments about prospective harm.
But, as with most battles of this sort, a big part of the strategy should be to make the wrongdoer (Monsanto, in this case) stop and think. If one can worry them enough, an actual court fight may prove unnecessary.
Randy Taylor
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