Friday, March 6, 2015
WTO Ruling on Country of Origin Labeling Expected May 18
The Bureau of National Affairs' WTO Reporter tells us that the World Trade Organization (WTO) Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) reviewing the U.S. rules for Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) is expected issue the report on that appeal by May 18, 2015. The case considers U.S. COOL regulations that require meat producers to specify on retail packaging where each animal was born, raised, and slaughtered. Mexico and Canada claim that U.S. COOL rules harm their pork and beef industries by imposing undue burdens and costs that exceed $1 billion per year.
The DSB report on the US labeling requirements would have come out sooner but the DSB has a heavy current workload, cases with rather complex issues, and an overworked translation service at the WTO. So look for that WTO DSB COOL Report in May. Cool.
(mew)
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/international_law/2015/03/wto-ruling-on-country-of-origin-labeling-expected-may-18.html
