Agricultural Biotechnologies: New Avenues for Production, Consumption and Technology Transfer POLICY AND REGULATORY OPTIONS ON GENETICALLY MODIFIED CROPS: WHY USA AND EU HAVE DIFFERENT APPROACHES AND HOW WTO NEGOTIATIONS CAN BE INVOLVED?

and Institutions". The authors are listed alphabetically and the authorship is equally attributed. This paper deals with the trade implications of the different policy and regulatory options currently adopted for managing the main issues raised by the recent large diffusion of the Genetically Modified (GM) crops. Though many different national regulatory approaches can be observed worldwide, USA and EU are the most relevant and cited cases of alternative (strongly permissive vs. strongly preventive) regulatory frameworks in the case of GM-crops. The institutional and normative background underlying these two alternative solutions is shortly dealt with in the paper. Particular attention is paid to different attitudes toward risk assessment in USA and EU society and political system, and to the different acknowledgment of consumers ’ concerns and right to be informed. According to this aspect, the paper then focuses on the WTO negotiations and the conflicts emerged in this context with respect to the GMO trade. The analysis is based on the recent theoretical contributions by Bagwell and Staiger (1999; 2001a; 2001b) on the WTO agreements as Pareto enhancing devices. The paper analyses under which conditions this approach to the WTO negotiations can maintain its requisites in the case Governare la rivoluzione Biotech in agricoltura: politiche ed istituzioni- Risultati of GMO trade. In other words, in which conditions both negotiators (EU and USA) can find a satisfactor