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COOL’s Impact On Canada’s Livestock Trade Focus Of WTO Case
09/27/2010 02:51PM

On September 14-15, Canadian Cattlemen’s Association (CCA) President Travis Toews, staff Dennis Laycraft and John Masswohl and CCA U.S. legal counsel Ed Farrell, attended the oral hearing of the WTO Dispute Settlement Panel on U.S. Country of Origin Labelling in Geneva, Switzerland. Representatives of the Canadian hog industry and Mexican livestock industry were also in attendance. The lone U.S. industry representative was a Texas order buyer of Mexican cattle.

The first day was the opportunity for Canada, Mexico and the U.S., respectively, to present their oral arguments and for the panel to ask questions to these three countries’ representatives.

Canada explained that its complaint is limited to the impact of COOL on livestock trade, not about the requirement to label meat that is exported from Canada and sold in the U.S. Canada is not disputing that countries can require certain origin labeling generally, but is targeting its complaint specifically to the requirement to label meat from animals slaughtered in the U.S. with the country where those animals were born.

Canada argued that the provisions of the WTO’s Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Agreement apply to the COOL measure whereby the U.S. must have a legitimate policy objective and must seek to achieve it in a manner that has the least possible adverse impact on trade. Canada described why the COOL measure does not comply with the requirements of these legal tests and outlined the economic impact that COOL has had on the North American livestock marketplace. In presenting its case, Canada drew on many statements provided by Canadian livestock producers and U.S. livestock purchasers.

The U.S. made little attempt to refute the Canadian economic analysis. Instead, they deflected the cause as being attributable to other factors such as the global recession in 2009. The U.S. also stated its view that COOL itself does not require, and has not caused, any segregation of Canadian cattle or price discrimination. The U.S. argued that if these effects were occurring, it was because of choices being made by market participants, not because of COOL.

On the second day, the so-called ‘third country interested parties’ had their opportunity to make their statements, followed by more questioning from the panelists. We were pleased that no countries sought to weigh in on the substance of the case one way or the other. Generally the third party presentations centered on matters of law and interpretation of WTO provisions where they wanted to advance an interpretation that may be relevant to them in some other matter. Overall, we do not believe any of the third party presentations were harmful to Canada’s complaint.

Canfax Market BriefsAs the oral hearing wrapped up, the next steps were identified. Within a couple of days of the hearing, all of the parties received documents containing more than 100 written questions from the panelists. Written responses to the panel are due within two weeks and shortly thereafter written rebuttals to statements made at the hearing. A second oral hearing will take place in December followed by further written submissions through February. A final panel report is scheduled for July 2011, most likely followed by an appeal taking another year.

Canadian cattle producers should know that this is an extremely resource-intensive process for the CCA. Our participation as stakeholder advisers has been essential to ensuring that the Canadian government legal team was well prepared with industry evidence and corporate memory.

Just as we have led similarly costly legal and advocacy efforts in the U.S. for most of the past 10-15 years, we will continue to see this case through to its conclusions. This effort is only possible with the valuable provincial check-off dollars provided by producers through their provincial cattle organizations as members of the CCA.

Source: Canadian Cattlemen Association