Labelling Genetically Modified Products Under International Law

This paper focuses on the debate on the health, policy and legal regimes that require the special labeling of food, drugs and other products that contain genetically-modified-organisms. The paper examines national and international regulatory schemes on genetically-modified-organisms and the roles of the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and World Trade Organization (WTO) conventions for non-restrictive global trade. This paper analyzes the scope, aims and objectives of the proposed international Biosafety Protocol in line with the overarching goals of GATT/WTO. The paper concludes that the food industry and individual producers should have the liberty to decide whether to label the genetically-modified products because having regulations based on consumer anxiety without any scientific evidence of harm violates the GATT objectives