Subject: RESURRECTING THE UGLY AMERICAN .
. ========== .
. Environmental Research Foundation .
. P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403 .
. Fax (410) 263-8944; E-mail: erf@rachel.org .
. ========== .
. All back issues are available by E-mail: send E-mail to .
. info@rachel.org with the single word HELP in the message. .
. Back issues are also available from http://www.rachel.org.ro.lder/balkan.htmluth_asia/newsid_369000/369484.stm. .
. To start your own free subscription, send E-mail to .
. listserv@rachel.org with the words .
. SUBSCRIBE RACHEL-WEEKLY YOUR NAME in the message. .
. The Rachel newsletter is now also available in Spanish; .
. to learn how to subscribe, send the word AYUDA in an .
. E-mail message to info@rachel.org. .
=================================================================
RESURRECTING THE UGLY AMERICAN
by Beth Burrows[1]
"Attempts to forge the world's first treaty to regulate trade in
genetically modified products failed this morning when the United
States and five other big agricultural exporters rejected a
proposal that had the support of the rest of the roughly 130
nations taking part." -- NEW YORK TIMES, February 24, 1999
Hundreds of diplomats, scientists, United Nations bureaucrats,
and public interest group types went to Cartagena, Columbia
earlier this year, hoping to conclude a treaty that would help
them feel safe with the products of genetic engineering. For four
years they had been arguing about environmental and human health
dangers, details of risk assessment, procedures for exchanging
information and regulating trade, the necessity of ensuring
liability and compensation, and so forth. Cartagena was scheduled
to be their final negotiation.
Worry about genetic engineering had come in the wake of the 1992
Rio Earth Summit and its creation, the Convention on Biological
Diversity (CBD). The CBD was based on the idea that all the
nations and peoples of the world could get together to safeguard
what is left of the world's biological resources. In November,
1995, CBD members decided to develop a biosafety protocol, a
binding treaty that would help prevent the products of genetic
engineering from harming the living organisms of the planet.
By February, 1999, there were 175 members of the Convention on
Biological Diversity. The United States was not one of them.
The Bush Administration had refused to sign the CBD, partly on
the grounds that it "threatened" U.S. technology -- especially
the U.S. biotechnology industry -- and partly on the grounds that
it would impose unfair financial burdens on the U.S. The Clinton
Administration signed the CBD but the treaty was never ratified
by the Senate.
Although not a member of the CBD, the U.S. sent a large
delegation to all CBD meetings, dominated the biosafety
discussions, and generally enjoyed most of the privileges and
few, if any, of the responsibilities of membership. By the time
negotiations in Cartegena were nearing their end, the U.S. was
the main player.
For whatever reason -- the size of the U.S. biotechnology
industry and the hope of other nations not to be left behind, the
difficulty of enforcing a protocol without the tacit agreement of
the largest biotech player in the world, the extent of U.S.
economic might, the amount of testosterone in the State
Department, the exaggerated power of transnational corporations,
the state of the world's economy -- the rest of the world let the
U.S. play the bully at Cartagena.
The U.S. was not alone in the role of bully. Five allies --
Canada, Australia, Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay--helped it hold
sway over the rest of the world. The six of them, like some
Sidney Greenstreet gang in a B movie, were known in Cartagena as
the Miami Group (the city in which they had met for the first
time).
The protocol the Miami Group nixed the last night in Cartagena
had already been negotiated into near-impotence. The
Precautionary Principle [see REHW #586], cornerstone of the Rio
Earth Summit, the ("better safe than sorry") beacon of what to do
in the face of insufficient "scientific" evidence, had been
reduced to a mere mention of its name in the preamble. Liability,
the guide to assigning responsibility if something goes wrong
with the products of genetic engineering, had been virtually
elimi- nated. Socio-economic concerns, consideration of whether
an engineered product could destroy a country's economy or ag-
riculture or culture, had been exorcised. The scope of the
proposed protocol had been narrowed to such an extent that no one
in Cartagena was sure it actually applied to anything. The
document allowed trade between countries that signed the document
and those that did not, thereby eliminating any in- centive to
sign. And the word "label" (as in the need to label genetically
engineered food) was nowhere to be found.
Virtually everything the biosafety high-ground players had fought
for over the years had been lost by the end of the negotiations.
Even so, the Miami Group balked at allowing a biosafety protocol
which might apply to their genetically engineered commodities.
>From the earliest days of the CBD, leadership on biosafety had
come from the developing world, not from countries with large
biotechnology industries to protect. While the U.S. asserted that
the dangers of genetic engineering were being exaggerated, that
industry was doing sufficient testing, that too stringent a
protocol would not meet the free-trade tests of the World Trade
Organization (WTO), the negotiator for the African group,
Ethiopia's Dr. Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher, reminded the U.S.
that a biosafety protocol was meant to be an environmental
treaty, not a trade treaty. While John Neville, representative of
the Seychelles, reasoned that "safety not be sacrificed to
expediency," Rafe Pomerance, onetime policy analyst with Friends
of the Earth and the World Resources Institute, now Deputy
Assistant to the Secretary of State, ranted that he was "not
going to let anyone do anything that might harm a 68 billion
dollar a year industry in the United States."
The whole tone of the Cartagena meeting suggested that someone
was trying to pull strings. There was gossip that Andrew Young
had been sent to Africa before the meeting to whip the biosafety
troublemakers into line. There were whispers that President
Clinton had made a last-minute phone call to the head of the
European Union, seeking to nudge him into the Miami camp.
Some of the rumored pressures may have worked. The Europeans had
arrived in Cartagena saying that they would play the middle
ground "between the extremes" of the Miami Group and the African
group.
Late the last night, the representative of the European Union, a
group of nations whose citizens were demanding labeling,
moratoria, and bans, quietly agreed to scuttle the Precautionary
Principle. [See REHW #586.]
"Its all just the big boys jockeying for market position,"
explained one diplomat.
Further adding to the Byzantine, humid atmosphere was the fact
that so many of the early meetings of importance in Cartagena
were held in rooms behind closed doors. At almost any hour you
could find angry delegates in the corridors outside those doors
saying how it all reminded them of "the old colonial game" or
"the old days under the Soviets."
Whatever was going on, and whoever was really in charge, the
Miami group held firm, insisting on a narrowly focused treaty
with minimal impact on industry.
Claiming the U.S. had made many compromises (but not detailing
what they were), Rafe Pomerance later would be quoted in the NEW
YORK TIMES saying, "There were two compromises we were not
prepared to make. One is to tie up trade in the world's food
supply. The second is to allow this regime, without a lot of
deliberation, to undermine the W.T.O. trading regime."
The Miami Group refused to allow the protocol to apply to their
genetically engineered corn and wheat. Arguing that commodities
meant for eating and processing do not enter the environment (but
not explaining where else it is possible for them to go), they
kiboshed the protocol.
At about five in the morning, several hours after negotiations
were to have concluded, exhausted delegates agreed to the
suspension of negotiations. Talks were to be resumed no later
than May 2000.
The NEW YORK TIMES reported that "bleary-eyed delegates from many
nations... expressed fury at the United States, accusing it of
intransigence and of putting the interest of its world-leading
farming and biotechnology industries above the environment."
While the headline in the MIAMI SUN SENTINEL reported just as
bluntly: "Critics claim U.S. greed is at root of refusal to sign
biosafety treaty."
Taking it Personally
I was there in Cartagena, pretty bleary-eyed and furious myself.
Like many NGO (non-governmental organization) representatives, I
had followed the negotiations for years, convinced of the need
for a protocol. We had all consulted scientists and put out white
papers and published booklets and given workshops and ignored our
families while we organized consultations and rallies and
whatever else we thought might bring some biosafety. And at the
end of it all, none of it seemed to matter.
To be there that last night in Cartegena and to realize that the
whole world might get no biosafety because one country and its
allies refused to allow their genetically engineered commodities
to be regulated, to know that there were environmental and human
health hazards and they would not be met by precaution, to
remember what the head of the U.S. delegation, Melinda Kimble,
had said to a group of NGOs the night before -- "The only treaty
less popular in the United States than the Convention on
Biological Diversity is the Treaty on the Rights of the Child" --
and to recall the audible gasp that followed her remarks as the
meaning sunk in: the future was officially unpopular in the
United States -- it was too much.
Right after negotiations broke down in Cartegena, I ran into
someone from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the
corridor; he was on the U.S. delegation.
"How can you stand yourself?" I asked him.
A nearby delegate from Eastern Europe overheard me and looked
shocked. "Beth gets very emotional," the FDA guy explained.
"If rationality means risking ecological and human health on the
planet for the sake of the profits of one industry," I responded,
"then I certainly hope I'm emotional."
"You see what I mean?" said the FDA guy to the delegate.
"You're an evil man," I told the FDA guy.
The listening delegate, who happened to know me, attempted to
intervene, "Beth, this is not an evil man. I know him. He's a
very nice person. Really."
"No," I explained, "this is not a nice person. He may seem like a
nice person. He may be very pleasant but he carries an evil
message. If I allow myself to think of him as a nice man, if I do
not insist that he is personally responsible for the messages he
utters, then one day I am certain he will come and tell me that
he was only following orders."
The delegate got my message. I'm not so sure about the FDA guy.
A few steps down the corridor, I ran into the reporter from the
NEW YORK TIMES.
"Beth, what do you think about all this?"
"What do you think I think? The environment's always the loser,
always. There was no moral high ground here. There was no
scientific high ground. There was just cheap power politics."
I was still upset when I got on the plane for Bogota, about two
hours later. The plane was full of tired-looking delegates. I
found my seat.
It was on the aisle. When the window seat occupant showed up, it
turned out to be Melinda Kimble, head of the U.S. delegation.
I started to laugh. By then, I'd already shouted at her a lot.
Everyone on the plane had probably heard me shout at her at least
once. I had nothing more to say.
I moved my legs aside so she could climb into her seat. I took
out a book and turned my back to her as far as I could without
undoing the seat belt. I didn't speak to her the whole trip. The
politics of shunning.
When I got back home, I allowed myself one last useless gesture.
I wrote the President. In part, I told him:
"There was a lot of bitterness and anger at the end of the
negotiations in Cartagena and, while not all such feeling should
be attributed to the bullying style of diplomacy favored by our
delegation, all the anger and bitterness, I believe, will come to
be directed at the people and government of the United States.
"Because the United States has demonstrated an ability to push
its way into the heart of negotiations among parties to a treaty
our country has not yet ratified, it will be assumed, and perhaps
correctly so, that we are behind every untoward event, utterance,
or outcome associated with this treaty. Every use of 'rules' to
subvert or prevent the utterance of opposing views--and there was
a great deal of such 'rule' manipulation in Cartagena--will be
designated an act of the United States. Every personal slight or
embarrassment experienced by any of the delegates--and there were
many such slights in Cartagena--will be experienced as an affront
committed by the United States. Every utterance about the needs
of our $68 billion a year industry will be understood as an
attack on the environment and citizens of other countries.
Continuous argument about protection of our industries will make
us hated. We will be seen as the fat, despised, and privileged
members of a society seeking only to make more money and become
more privileged...
"One of the Third World delegates in Cartagena, a gentle
scientist who found himself among many others outside closed
doors, waiting to hear news from the few 'real negotiators'
within, said to me, 'Beth, I honestly thought I was doing
something here. I honestly thought our discussions in the contact
groups were meaningful. I honestly thought I was making a
contribution worthy of what it cost my government to send me
here. But this, where all of us wait while they try to force a
protocol by using rules most of us hardly know--this is just
brutal power, just like the old colonial days.'
"Another delegate asked me on the last day, 'Beth, do they wish
to push us into the arms of Sadaam?...'"
==========
[1] Beth Burrows is director and president of the Edmonds
Institute, 20319 92nd Ave., Edmonds, WA 98020. Copyright (C) Beth
Burrows. Reprinted with permission from FOOD AND WATER JOURNAL
(Spring 1999). For subscription information contact Food & Water,
Inc., 389 Rural Route 215, Walden, VT 05873. Tel. (802) 563-3300.
Descriptor terms: biotech; treaties; convention on biological
diversity; cbd; biosafety protocol; beth burrows;
################################################################
NOTICE
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 this material is
distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes.
Environmental Research Foundation provides this electronic
version of RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH WEEKLY free of charge
even though it costs the organization considerable time and money
to produce it. We would like to continue to provide this service
free. You could help by making a tax-deductible contribution
(anything you can afford, whether $5.00 or $500.00). Please send
your tax-deductible contribution to: Environmental Research
Foundation, P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403-7036. Please do
not send credit card information via E-mail. For further
information about making tax-deductible contributions to E.R.F.
by credit card please phone us toll free at 1-888-2RACHEL, or at
(410) 263-1584, or fax us at (410) 263-8944.
--Peter Montague, Editor
################################################################
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This is a test. If you receive more than one copy of THIS
message, please notify me.
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=======================Electronic Edition========================
. .
. RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH WEEKLY #655 .
. ---June 17, 1999--- .
. HEADLINES: .
. RESURRECTING THE UGLY AMERICAN .
. ========== .
. Environmental Research Foundation .
. P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403 .
. Fax (410) 263-8944; E-mail: erf@rachel.org .
. ========== .
. All back issues are available by E-mail: send E-mail to .
. info@rachel.org with the single word HELP in the message. .
. Back issues are also available from http://www.rachel.org.ro.lder/balkan.htmluth_asia/newsid_369000/369484.stm. .
. To start your own free subscription, send E-mail to .
. listserv@rachel.org with the words .
. SUBSCRIBE RACHEL-WEEKLY YOUR NAME in the message. .
. The Rachel newsletter is now also available in Spanish; .
. to learn how to subscribe, send the word AYUDA in an .
. E-mail message to info@rachel.org. .
=================================================================
RESURRECTING THE UGLY AMERICAN
by Beth Burrows[1]
"Attempts to forge the world's first treaty to regulate trade in
genetically modified products failed this morning when the United
States and five other big agricultural exporters rejected a
proposal that had the support of the rest of the roughly 130
nations taking part." -- NEW YORK TIMES, February 24, 1999
Hundreds of diplomats, scientists, United Nations bureaucrats,
and public interest group types went to Cartagena, Colombia
earlier this year, hoping to conclude a treaty that would help
them feel safe with the products of genetic engineering. For four
years they had been arguing about environmental and human health
dangers, details of risk assessment, procedures for exchanging
information and regulating trade, the necessity of ensuring
liability and compensation, and so forth. Cartagena was scheduled
to be their final negotiation.
Worry about genetic engineering had come in the wake of the 1992
Rio Earth Summit and its creation, the Convention on Biological
Diversity (CBD). The CBD was based on the idea that all the
nations and peoples of the world could get together to safeguard
what is left of the world's biological resources. In November,
1995, CBD members decided to develop a biosafety protocol, a
binding treaty that would help prevent the products of genetic
engineering from harming the living organisms of the planet.
By February, 1999, there were 175 members of the Convention on
Biological Diversity. The United States was not one of them.
The Bush Administration had refused to sign the CBD, partly on
the grounds that it "threatened" U.S. technology -- especially
the U.S. biotechnology industry -- and partly on the grounds that
it would impose unfair financial burdens on the U.S. The Clinton
Administration signed the CBD but the treaty was never ratified
by the Senate.
Although not a member of the CBD, the U.S. sent a large
delegation to all CBD meetings, dominated the biosafety
discussions, and generally enjoyed most of the privileges and
few, if any, of the responsibilities of membership. By the time
negotiations in Cartegena were nearing their end, the U.S. was
the main player.
For whatever reason -- the size of the U.S. biotechnology
industry and the hope of other nations not to be left behind, the
difficulty of enforcing a protocol without the tacit agreement of
the largest biotech player in the world, the extent of U.S.
economic might, the amount of testosterone in the State
Department, the exaggerated power of transnational corporations,
the state of the world's economy -- the rest of the world let the
U.S. play the bully at Cartagena.
The U.S. was not alone in the role of bully. Five allies --
Canada, Australia, Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay--helped it hold
sway over the rest of the world. The six of them, like some
Sidney Greenstreet gang in a B movie, were known in Cartagena as
the Miami Group (the city in which they had met for the first
time).
The protocol the Miami Group nixed the last night in Cartagena
had already been negotiated into near-impotence. The
Precautionary Principle [see REHW #586], cornerstone of the Rio
Earth Summit, the ("better safe than sorry") beacon of what to do
in the face of insufficient "scientific" evidence, had been
reduced to a mere mention of its name in the preamble. Liability,
the guide to assigning responsibility if something goes wrong
with the products of genetic engineering, had been virtually
elimi- nated. Socio-economic concerns, consideration of whether
an engineered product could destroy a country's economy or ag-
riculture or culture, had been exorcised. The scope of the
proposed protocol had been narrowed to such an extent that no one
in Cartagena was sure it actually applied to anything. The
document allowed trade between countries that signed the document
and those that did not, thereby eliminating any in- centive to
sign. And the word "label" (as in the need to label genetically
engineered food) was nowhere to be found.
Virtually everything the biosafety high-ground players had fought
for over the years had been lost by the end of the negotiations.
Even so, the Miami Group balked at allowing a biosafety protocol
which might apply to their genetically engineered commodities.
>From the earliest days of the CBD, leadership on biosafety had
come from the developing world, not from countries with large
biotechnology industries to protect. While the U.S. asserted that
the dangers of genetic engineering were being exaggerated, that
industry was doing sufficient testing, that too stringent a
protocol would not meet the free-trade tests of the World Trade
Organization (WTO), the negotiator for the African group,
Ethiopia's Dr. Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher, reminded the U.S.
that a biosafety protocol was meant to be an environmental
treaty, not a trade treaty. While John Neville, representative of
the Seychelles, reasoned that "safety not be sacrificed to
expediency," Rafe Pomerance, onetime policy analyst with Friends
of the Earth and the World Resources Institute, now Deputy
Assistant to the Secretary of State, ranted that he was "not
going to let anyone do anything that might harm a 68 billion
dollar a year industry in the United States."
The whole tone of the Cartagena meeting suggested that someone
was trying to pull strings. There was gossip that Andrew Young
had been sent to Africa before the meeting to whip the biosafety
troublemakers into line. There were whispers that President
Clinton had made a last-minute phone call to the head of the
European Union, seeking to nudge him into the Miami camp.
Some of the rumored pressures may have worked. The Europeans had
arrived in Cartagena saying that they would play the middle
ground "between the extremes" of the Miami Group and the African
group.
Late the last night, the representative of the European Union, a
group of nations whose citizens were demanding labeling,
moratoria, and bans, quietly agreed to scuttle the Precautionary
Principle. [See REHW #586.]
"Its all just the big boys jockeying for market position,"
explained one diplomat.
Further adding to the Byzantine, humid atmosphere was the fact
that so many of the early meetings of importance in Cartagena
were held in rooms behind closed doors. At almost any hour you
could find angry delegates in the corridors outside those doors
saying how it all reminded them of "the old colonial game" or
"the old days under the Soviets."
Whatever was going on, and whoever was really in charge, the
Miami group held firm, insisting on a narrowly focused treaty
with minimal impact on industry.
Claiming the U.S. had made many compromises (but not detailing
what they were), Rafe Pomerance later would be quoted in the NEW
YORK TIMES saying, "There were two compromises we were not
prepared to make. One is to tie up trade in the world's food
supply. The second is to allow this regime, without a lot of
deliberation, to undermine the W.T.O. trading regime."
The Miami Group refused to allow the protocol to apply to their
genetically engineered corn and wheat. Arguing that commodities
meant for eating and processing do not enter the environment (but
not explaining where else it is possible for them to go), they
kiboshed the protocol.
At about five in the morning, several hours after negotiations
were to have concluded, exhausted delegates agreed to the
suspension of negotiations. Talks were to be resumed no later
than May 2000.
The NEW YORK TIMES reported that "bleary-eyed delegates from many
nations... expressed fury at the United States, accusing it of
intransigence and of putting the interest of its world-leading
farming and biotechnology industries above the environment."
While the headline in the MIAMI SUN SENTINEL reported just as
bluntly: "Critics claim U.S. greed is at root of refusal to sign
biosafety treaty."
Taking it Personally
I was there in Cartagena, pretty bleary-eyed and furious myself.
Like many NGO (non-governmental organization) representatives, I
had followed the negotiations for years, convinced of the need
for a protocol. We had all consulted scientists and put out white
papers and published booklets and given workshops and ignored our
families while we organized consultations and rallies and
whatever else we thought might bring some biosafety. And at the
end of it all, none of it seemed to matter.
To be there that last night in Cartegena and to realize that the
whole world might get no biosafety because one country and its
allies refused to allow their genetically engineered commodities
to be regulated, to know that there were environmental and human
health hazards and they would not be met by precaution, to
remember what the head of the U.S. delegation, Melinda Kimble,
had said to a group of NGOs the night before -- "The only treaty
less popular in the United States than the Convention on
Biological Diversity is the Treaty on the Rights of the Child" --
and to recall the audible gasp that followed her remarks as the
meaning sunk in: the future was officially unpopular in the
United States -- it was too much.
Right after negotiations broke down in Cartegena, I ran into
someone from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the
corridor; he was on the U.S. delegation.
"How can you stand yourself?" I asked him.
A nearby delegate from Eastern Europe overheard me and looked
shocked. "Beth gets very emotional," the FDA guy explained.
"If rationality means risking ecological and human health on the
planet for the sake of the profits of one industry," I responded,
"then I certainly hope I'm emotional."
"You see what I mean?" said the FDA guy to the delegate.
"You're an evil man," I told the FDA guy.
The listening delegate, who happened to know me, attempted to
intervene, "Beth, this is not an evil man. I know him. He's a
very nice person. Really."
"No," I explained, "this is not a nice person. He may seem like a
nice person. He may be very pleasant but he carries an evil
message. If I allow myself to think of him as a nice man, if I do
not insist that he is personally responsible for the messages he
utters, then one day I am certain he will come and tell me that
he was only following orders."
The delegate got my message. I'm not so sure about the FDA guy.
A few steps down the corridor, I ran into the reporter from the
NEW YORK TIMES.
"Beth, what do you think about all this?"
"What do you think I think? The environment's always the loser,
always. There was no moral high ground here. There was no
scientific high ground. There was just cheap power politics."
I was still upset when I got on the plane for Bogota, about two
hours later. The plane was full of tired-looking delegates. I
found my seat.
It was on the aisle. When the window seat occupant showed up, it
turned out to be Melinda Kimble, head of the U.S. delegation.
I started to laugh. By then, I'd already shouted at her a lot.
Everyone on the plane had probably heard me shout at her at least
once. I had nothing more to say.
I moved my legs aside so she could climb into her seat. I took
out a book and turned my back to her as far as I could without
undoing the seat belt. I didn't speak to her the whole trip. The
politics of shunning.
When I got back home, I allowed myself one last useless gesture.
I wrote the President. In part, I told him:
"There was a lot of bitterness and anger at the end of the
negotiations in Cartagena and, while not all such feeling should
be attributed to the bullying style of diplomacy favored by our
delegation, all the anger and bitterness, I believe, will come to
be directed at the people and government of the United States.
"Because the United States has demonstrated an ability to push
its way into the heart of negotiations among parties to a treaty
our country has not yet ratified, it will be assumed, and perhaps
correctly so, that we are behind every untoward event, utterance,
or outcome associated with this treaty. Every use of 'rules' to
subvert or prevent the utterance of opposing views--and there was
a great deal of such 'rule' manipulation in Cartagena--will be
designated an act of the United States. Every personal slight or
embarrassment experienced by any of the delegates--and there were
many such slights in Cartagena--will be experienced as an affront
committed by the United States. Every utterance about the needs
of our $68 billion a year industry will be understood as an
attack on the environment and citizens of other countries.
Continuous argument about protection of our industries will make
us hated. We will be seen as the fat, despised, and privileged
members of a society seeking only to make more money and become
more privileged...
"One of the Third World delegates in Cartagena, a gentle
scientist who found himself among many others outside closed
doors, waiting to hear news from the few 'real negotiators'
within, said to me, 'Beth, I honestly thought I was doing
something here. I honestly thought our discussions in the contact
groups were meaningful. I honestly thought I was making a
contribution worthy of what it cost my government to send me
here. But this, where all of us wait while they try to force a
protocol by using rules most of us hardly know--this is just
brutal power, just like the old colonial days.'
"Another delegate asked me on the last day, 'Beth, do they wish
to push us into the arms of Sadaam?...'"
==========
[1] Beth Burrows is director and president of the Edmonds
Institute, 20319 92nd Ave., Edmonds, WA 98020. Copyright (C) Beth
Burrows. Reprinted with permission from FOOD AND WATER JOURNAL
(Spring 1999). For subscription information contact Food & Water,
Inc., 389 Rural Route 215, Walden, VT 05873. Tel. (802) 563-3300.
Descriptor terms: biotech; treaties; convention on biological
diversity; cbd; biosafety protocol; beth burrows;
################################################################
NOTICE
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 this material is
distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes.
Environmental Research Foundation provides this electronic
version of RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH WEEKLY free of charge
even though it costs the organization considerable time and money
to produce it. We would like to continue to provide this service
free. You could help by making a tax-deductible contribution
(anything you can afford, whether $5.00 or $500.00). Please send
your tax-deductible contribution to: Environmental Research
Foundation, P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403-7036. Please do
not send credit card information via E-mail. For further
information about making tax-deductible contributions to E.R.F.
by credit card please phone us toll free at 1-888-2RACHEL, or at
(410) 263-1584, or fax us at (410) 263-8944.
--Peter Montague, Editor
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