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biotechnology
In 'Assault' on Mexican Food Sovereignty, US Ramps Up Fight Over GM Corn
"U.S. agribusiness exporters, the biotech industry, and their allies in Congress are pushing this case, intent on compelling Mexico to accept U.S. exports without debate," said one expert.
Aug 17, 2023
After two-and-a-half months of failed negotiations, the U.S. government on Thursday intensified its effort to quash Mexico's limits on genetically modified corn imports by calling for the formation of a dispute settlement panel under a North American trade deal.
In a 2020 decree backed by agricultural, consumer, environmental, public health, and worker groups, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) announced plans to phase out genetically modified (GM) corn and the herbicide glyphosate by January 2024.
Under pressure from the U.S. government and impacted industries, he issued a new decree in February reiterating plans to block GM corn imports for human consumption by then but lifting the deadline for imports intended for livestock feed and industrial use.
"The Mexican government will show what has occurred: Its cherished tortillas are being contaminated with glyphosate and GM corn. And they intend to put a stop to that."
While AMLO's move was seen as a concession to the U.S. and lobbyists challenging his policies, the Biden administration in June still requested 75 days of formal negotiations. After talks ended Wednesday, U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Katherine Tai confirmed the decision to form a panel under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).
"Through the USMCA dispute panel, we seek to resolve our concerns and help ensure consumers can continue to access safe and affordable food and agricultural products," Tai said Thursday. "It is critical that Mexico eliminate its USMCA-inconsistent biotechnology measures so that American farmers can continue to access the Mexican market and use innovative tools to respond to climate and food security challenges. Our bilateral relationship with Mexico, one of our oldest and strongest trading partners, is rooted in trust and honesty, and there are many areas where we will continue to cooperate and work together."
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack similarly said that "Mexico's approach to biotechnology is not based on science" and "the United States is continuing to exercise its rights under the USMCA to ensure that U.S. producers and exporters have full and fair access to the Mexican market."
The Mexican Ministry of Economy responded in a statement that "Mexico does not agree with the position of the United States" and "is prepared to defend the Mexican position before this international panel and demonstrate: 1) that the national regulation is consistent with the commitments signed in the treaty; and 2) that the challenged measures do not have commercial effects."
The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) has previously supported Mexico's efforts to phase out GM corn and glyphosate and on Thursday challenged claims by U.S. officials and agribusiness about Mexican obligations under the treaty and the potential economic impact of the policies.
"U.S. agribusiness exporters, the biotech industry, and their allies in Congress are pushing this case, intent on compelling Mexico to accept U.S. exports without debate. It is an assault on Mexico's food sovereignty," said Karen Hansen-Kuhn, IATP director of trade and international strategies. "Trade rules should provide a forum to protect and advance rights, rather than block them."
Hansen-Kuhn on Thursday authored an op-ed about Mexico's rights under the USMCA while ITAP senior adviser Timothy A. Wise wrote about "exaggerated claims of economic damage" that "sprang from a convenient set of assumptions, all of which are flawed and now outdated in light of the more recent presidential decree."
"As Mexican Economy Minister Raquel Buenrostro stated in response to the USTR request for technical consultations, Mexico's decree is based on science, and she will challenge the U.S. government in the consultations to show 'quantitatively, with numbers, something that has not occurred: that the corn decree has commercially affected U.S. exporters,'" Wise also said.
"The Mexican government will show what has occurred: Its cherished tortillas are being contaminated with glyphosate and GM corn," he continued. "And they intend to put a stop to that."
As Reutersdetailed Thursday:
Under USMCA's dispute settlement rules, a five-person panel, chosen from a roster of pre-approved experts, must be convened within 30 days, with a chair jointly chosen and the U.S. side choosing two Mexican panelists and Mexico choosing two American panelists. The panel will review testimony and written submissions and its initial report is due 150 days after the panel is convened.
Previous USMCA dispute panels last year ruled in the U.S.'s favor in a dispute over Canadian dairy quotas, and against the U.S. on automotive rules of origin, siding with Mexico and Canada.
There have been other disagreements between the U.S. and Mexico, most notably over energy in which the U.S. has argued that Mexico's nationalist policy prejudices foreign companies.
Arturo Sarukhán, a former Mexican ambassador to the United States, said on social media Thursday that "of the two consultation processes—energy and yellow corn—this is the one that is politically most relevant for the White House in 2024," given the significance of agricultural states such as Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin to Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden, who is seeking reelection, and the GOP nominee, which could be former President Donald Trump, who signed the USMCA.
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Privacy Advocates Demand Ban on Facial Recognition in Schools in Response to Damning Study on the Technology
A new publication warns that the surveillance technology in schools could exacerbate racial biases.
Aug 10, 2020
Privacy advocates on Monday urged lawmakers to ban facial recognition in schools in response to a new study finding that use of the technology in educational settings would likely lead to a number of negative consequences including the normalization of surveillance and worsening of racial biases.
"Using facial recognition in schools amounts to unethical experimentation on children," said Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future.
The digital rights group has been vocal in its opposition to facial recognition, or FR, and last year launched the BanFacialRecognition.com website along with dozens of other groups.
Greer, in her statement, said that the moves being made during the covoravirus crisis by companies that sell the technology are simply adding more urgency to the demand for a ban.
"We're already seeing surveillance vendors attempt to exploit the Covid-19 pandemic to push for the use of this ineffective, invasive, and blatantly racist technology," she said. "It's time to draw a line in the sand right now."
"Lawmakers should act quickly to ban facial recognition in schools, as well as its use by law enforcement and corporations," added Greer.
The new comments from Greer follow a study (pdf) out Monday from researchers at the University of Michigan's Ford School of Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program (STPP) entitled "Cameras in the Classroom."
"Schools have also begun to use [FR] to track students and visitors for a range of uses, from automating attendance to school security," the researchers wrote, though they noted that the technology's use in schools is "not yet widespread."
But, the authors added, there's good reason to stop its spread:
[O]ur analysis reveals that FR will likely have five types of implications: exacerbating racism, normalizing surveillance and eroding privacy, narrowing the definition of the "acceptable" student, commodifying data, and institutionalizing inaccuracy. Because FR is automated, it will extend these effects to more students than any manual system could.
FR "is likely to mimic the impacts of school resource officers (SROs), stop-and-frisk policies, and airport security," all of which "purport to be objective and neutral systems, but in practice they reflect the structural and systemic biases of the societies around them," the study says.
"All of these practices have had racist outcomes due to the users of the systems disproportionately targeting people of color," the researchers wrote.
The technology further stands to "normalize the experience of being constantly surveilled starting at a young age" and holds the possibility of "mission creep," the researchers warned, "as administrators expand the usage of the technology outside of what was originally defined."
According to lead author Shobita Parthasarathy, STPP director and professor of public policy, "The research shows that prematurely deploying the technology without understanding its implications would be unethical and dangerous."
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Ground-breaking New Report Launched Today: The Big Bad Fix - The Case Against Climate Geoengineering
"The Big Bad Fix - The Case Against Climate Geoengineering," a report released today by ETC Group, Biofuelwatch and Heinrich Boll Foundation, warns that geoengineering (the large-scale manipulation of the climate) is gaining acceptance as a would-be technological fix for climate change in key emitting countries, as these countries refuse to break away from their fossil-fuelled economies.
Dec 06, 2017
"The Big Bad Fix - The Case Against Climate Geoengineering," a report released today by ETC Group, Biofuelwatch and Heinrich Boll Foundation, warns that geoengineering (the large-scale manipulation of the climate) is gaining acceptance as a would-be technological fix for climate change in key emitting countries, as these countries refuse to break away from their fossil-fuelled economies. Geoengineering research programs and projects planned by industry and state-funded and private research institutions are proliferating, primarily in high-emitting countries such as the US, the UK and China. "The Big Bad Fix" analyses the context and risks of geoengineering, and reveals the actors, vested interests and political developments underway to advance the large-scale technological schemes to manipulate the Earth's natural systems.
Although considered reckless and unacceptable by many scientific and political experts, geoengineering is now increasingly being pushed into the mainstream of climate policy debates, where it creates the illusion of a technological shortcut to manage the symptoms of climate change without addressing its root causes.
However, as the report details, geoengineering poses many risks for people, ecosystems and security. It relies on excessive land, water and resource consumption, threatens food security, and undermines democratic control over the world's commons because its untested technologies are also developed by patent-holders for profit. Therefore, the report states, irreversible harm to biodiversity and ecosystem integrity is highly probable. There are also serious concerns about geoengineering governance, including the potential for unilateral deployment, the risk of conflict in the event of adverse regional impacts and side effects, and the risk of weaponization of geoengineering technologies.
"Geoengineering is a dangerous defence of the failed status quo, not a technical or scientific necessity. In fact, the technologies put forward for geoengineering will most likely worsen rather than solve the multifaceted problems created by climate change. Claiming that we 'must' deploy geoengineering is saying that we would sooner do irreparable harm to our planet than alter our economic system that benefits only the very few at the top," says Rachel Smolker, Co-director of Biofuelwatch.
The "Big Bad Fix" is being launched today in Nairobi during the 3rd United Nations Environmental Assembly and in the run-up to a meeting of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Montreal. Geoengineering is subject to a de facto moratorium under the CBD, and marine geoengineering is prohibited by the London Protocol of the London Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution. The authors of the report argue that these decisions must be upheld and must be the starting point of any legitimate, international and democratic discussion of geoengineering governance.
"Geoengineering would exacerbate the global power imbalance, creating winners and losers. It would be foolish to allow a group of countries to take control of the global thermostat," states Silvia Ribeiro, Latin America Director of ETC Group. "Governance must not be mistaken to mean establishing regulations to legalize and permit the development of such technologies. Banning exceedingly risky and dangerous technologies is a legitimate and prudent approach to governance, as put in practice with the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and the UN's adoption of a Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in July 2017," adds Ribeiro.
Instead of resorting to unproven, risky technofixes, the report calls for the rapid implementation of a climate-just vision for limiting global warming to under 1.5degC.
"Proponents of geoengineering are feeding the illusion that we can escape our climate crises without having to adjust our emission-heavy lifestyles. But reality is not that simple. Not only do geoengineering technologies come with new risks and side effects, they also distract from the only proven solution for climate change: a radical reduction of climate changing emissions. Before geoengineering is put into action, we need clear and binding regulations for these technologies. An international framework of regulation must be grounded in the precautionary principle, and technologies with associated risks that are not predictable, justifiable or manageable must be prohibited outright," says Barbara Unmussig, Director of the Heinrich Boll Foundation.
The report concludes that the numerous high-impact risks of geoengineering, and the political, social, cultural, economic, ethical, moral, intergenerational and rights-based problems it implies, render geoengineering unacceptable. Further, the authors argue that it is a dangerous distraction from the urgent need to support viable alternatives: making deep emission cuts in the near-term and rapidly transforming our economies to allow for a socially and ecologically sustainable and just future, rather than locking the world into a long-term dependence on non-existent, high-risk technologies.
Click here to read the report: https://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/2017/big-bad-fix
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