Indonesia Picks Up Allies In WTO Palm Fight

(Palm Oil Monitor) Indonesia has picked up a number of allies in its battle with the EU over the bloc’s ban of palm oil in its renewable energy scheme.

An additional 18 countries have reserved their rights to participate in the proceedings as third parties. These include palm producers Malaysia, Thailand, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Colombia, as well as major agricultural exporters United States, Canada, Brazil and Argentina.

There is also interest from Norway, which has made similar moves to block palm oil from its renewables programs. China is also a third party to the dispute; recycled cooking oil exports to the EU have increased significantly over recent years, and China will take interest in any potential certification barriers in the EU.

Interest from the US, in particular, is of note in light of recent comments by US Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, who took the EU’s Farm to Fork strategy to task in a recent debate.

Perdue stated that“as proposed, the Farm to Fork and Biodiversity strategies will be extremely trade prohibitive and jeopardize agricultural output … When innovative tools are taken away from a farmer, the only choice is protectionism, which isn’t healthy for Europe, the US, or anywhere else in the world. Walled-off protectionist strategies only take us back, not forward.”

Andrew Mitchell: RED II “cannot be justified” under WTO

Andrew Mitchell, one of the world’s leading WTO experts and WTO panellist has published a blistering critique of the EU’s revised Renewable Energy Directive (RED II).

In a new paper to be published in Trade, Law and Development, Mitchell and his co-author Dean Merriman summarise the paper as such: “the EU’s measures are inconsistent with its WTO obligations and cannot be justified under any available exceptions. Perhaps more importantly, it is not clear to us how ILUC [indirect land use change] can be addressed through trade measures.”

...

How does this fall foul of WTO rules?

“the EU’s reliance on an historical generalisation of ILUC risk, and its development of an exception to that generalisation which does not in itself address the same risk, has led to the introduction of an overly inclusive measure. Viewed from this perspective, there are strong arguments that there are less trade-restrictive alternatives to the Renewable Energy Package, and that the measures are therefore not “necessary” within the meaning of Article XX(b).”

...

Mitchell and Merriman summarise by stating:

“We think the panel will impugn the EU’s reliance on historical generalisations of risk regulate current risks. This panel’s report will also shed light on the relationship between international environmental law and WTO law, insofar as a WTO Member attempts to address GHG emissions in another jurisdiction. The prospect that this panel will reach the conclusion that the Renewable Energy Package is inconsistent with WTO law will no doubt fuel the idea that WTO law tips the balance too heavily in favour of trade obligations over broader regulatory rights; what the panel’s conclusions may well leave open, however, is the extent to which trade measures can address ILUC in other jurisdictions at all.” READ MORE

Panel to discuss Indonesian palm oil dispute with the EU (Biofuels International)