Another nail in the coffin of US sovereignty occurred late last month and barely made a ripple (if any) in the MSM.
The WTO (World Trade Organization) ruled that the country of origin labeling (COOL) practices in the Unites States are illegal under the TBT Agreement (Technical Barriers to Trade – click here to see the pdf of the TBT).
Here’s a sample of the ruling:
…the Appellate Body found that the COOL measure lacks even-handedness because its recordkeeping and verification requirements impose a disproportionate burden on upstream producers and processors of livestock as compared to the information conveyed to consumers through the mandatory labelling requirements for meat sold at the retail level. That is, although a large amount of information must be tracked and transmitted by upstream producers for purposes of providing consumers with information on origin, only a small amount of this information is actually communicated to consumers in an understandable or accurate manner, including because a considerable proportion of meat sold in the United States is not subject to the COOL measure’s labelling requirements at all. Accordingly, the detrimental impact on imported livestock cannot be said to stem exclusively from a legitimate regulatory distinction, and instead reflects discrimination in violation of Article 2.1.
The upshot of the legal mumbo-jumbo above is that the meat on your grocer’s shelves could be now from anywhere because tracking the meat and livestock is really hard.
Mystery meat, anyone?
Read the entire ruling at WTO | dispute settlement – the disputes – DS384.
