The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and the international trade of genetically modified organisms: A new element of the conflict between trade and the environment

The present thesis deals with the international legal consequences of the Biosafety Protocol. If this Protocol answers the problem of GMOs, by enforcing the application of the precautionary principle to the international trade of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), it does not solve the conflict between the interests of trade and those of the environment. On the contrary, the Biosafety Protocol conflicts with the rules of the GATT and the national norms inspired by it would risk being contested before the dispute-settlement institutions of the World Trade Organisation. The Protocol therefore constitutes a new element in the conflict, pre-existing and unsolved, which sets the implicit supremacy of the GATT against the international environmental norms. It confirms the necessity to find a solution enabling the equal authority and mutual respect of the international environmental and trade rules.; All information is correct as at 14 November 2000.