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October 11, 2005
Survey of Congressional Blogs
In A Capitol Hill Presence in the Blogosphere: Lawmakers Try to Balance Value of Openness With The Medium's Blunt Tone, Brian Faler surveys the blogging activities of members of Congress for the Washington Post.
October 11, 2005 in New Publications | Permalink
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http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=THEHILLPOL.story&STORY=/www/story/10-09-2007/0004678304&EDATE=TUE+Oct+09+2007,+09:00+AM
EU Hides Behind 'Private' Standards in Effort to Secure Global Regulatory Control
Developing Countries May Have New Grounds to Bring WTO Actions Against
Europe
PRINCETON, N.J., Oct. 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In the current issue
of the Global Trade and Customs Journal, international trade and regulatory
lawyer Lawrence Kogan details how the European Union and its member states
previously enlisted private European environmental standards bodies to
promote official government sustainable forest management policies that
likely violated the World Trade Organization rights of developing countries
and their industries. In addition, the article describes how these same EU
governments are behind the ongoing efforts of other European pressure
groups to promote, via United Nations agencies and international
standardization organizations, the adoption by global industry supply
chains of overly strict corporate social responsibility standards.
According to Mr. Kogan, "It is no secret that the EU aspires to 'usurp
America's role as a source of global standards,' and to become 'the world's
regulatory capital' and 'standard-bearer.'" Therefore, it is natural that
they would endeavor to employ whatever nontransparent means are available
to push their regulatory control agenda forward." As EU trade commissioner
Peter Mandelson claimed in a prior speech, 'exporting our rules and
standards around the world is one source [and expression] of European
power.'"
Two recent articles appearing in the Financial Times and the Economist
confirm this assessment. "The Commission, the EU's executive body, states
openly that it wants other countries to follow EU rules and its officials
are working hard to put that vision into practice... [T]he Union [has]... a
body of law running to almost 95,000 pages -- a set of rules and
regulations that covers virtually all aspects of economic life and that is
constantly expanded and updated. Compared with other jurisdictions, the
EU's rules tend to be stricter, especially where product safety, consumer
protection and environmental and health [sustainable development]
requirements are concerned."
The European regulatory model is worrisome, emphasizes Kogan,
paraphrasing from one article, especially "because 'it rests on the
[standard-of-proof-diminishing, burden-of-proof-reversing,
guilty-until-proven-innocent, I-fear-therefore-I-shall-ban, hazard-(not
risk)-based] Precautionary Principle', which is inconsistent with both WTO
law and US constitutionally-guaranteed private property rights." As another
article reaffirms, "In Europe corporate innocence is not assumed. Indeed, a
vast slab of EU laws...reverses the burden of proof, asking industry to
demonstrate that substances are harmless...[T]he philosophical gap reflects
the American constitutional tradition that everything is allowed until it
is forbidden, against the Napoleonic tradition codifying what the state
allows and banning everything else."
"Notwithstanding its knowledge of Europe's extraterritorial
activities," warns Kogan, "the 110th US Congress may soon ratify the UN Law
of the Sea Convention without all of its committees possessing oversight
jurisdiction having first adequately reviewed in public hearings its
45-plus environmental regulatory articles -- which also incorporate
Europe's Precautionary Principle! This would essentially open up the
floodgates to a tsunami of costly non-science and non-economics-based
environmental laws, regulations and standards that would abridge Americans'
Fifth Amendment rights, impair U.S. industry's global economic
competitiveness and fundamentally reshape the American legal and free
enterprise systems.
The Institute for Trade, Standards and Sustainable Development (ITSSD)
is a non-partisan non-profit international legal research and educational
organization that examines international law relating to trade, industry
and positive sustainable development around the world. This ITSSD study and
related materials are accessible online at:
http://www.itssd.org/GTCJ_03-offprints KOGAN - Discerning the Forest
from the Trees.pdf,
http://www.itssd.org/Programs/ITSSDAssessmentISO26000Standard.pdf and
http://www.itssd.blogspot.com
CONTACT:
Lawrence Kogan
609-951-2222
Posted by: Informed Lawyer | Oct 11, 2007 6:42:48 PM
