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1 Chapter 1 : blog.quintoapp.com When Cooperation Fails Mark A. Pollack Boeken The transatlantic dispute over genetically modified organisms (GMOs) has brought into conflict the United States and the European Union, two long-time allies and economically interdependent democracies with a long record of successful cooperation. Pollack and Gregory C. Shaffer In, the U. Food and Drug Administration FDA approved the first genetically engineered food to be approved for sale and marketing in the United States. By the end of, about 57 percent of soybeans, 50 percent of cotton, and 40 percent of corn grown in the United States was from GM seeds. In just two years between and, crop area sowed with GM seeds increased fifteen-fold, to almost 28 million hectares. Lowell Hill and Sophia Battle, researchers at the University of Illinois, call this possibly "the most rapid adoption of new technology in the history of agriculture. GMOs have become big business in the United States, where both government and industry have embraced the new technology of genetic engineering. The United States surged ahead and remains the world leader in the development of GM foods. By contrast, the EU has taken a far more cautious approach to GMOs, dragging out the approval processes for new GM foods and insisting that such products be labeled as such for consumers. The stark differences in the treatment of GM foods are not accidental, but reflect long-standing and broader differences in regulatory cultures and food safety laws on either side of the Atlantic, which have already led to one major trade dispute between the United States and the EU over the export of U. A transatlantic dispute over the regulation of GMOs matters, moreover, not only because of the strong emotions it arouses on both sides of the debate, but also because of the economic stakes for those American farmers who have switched much of their production to GM crops in recent years. Yet, despite the entrenched conflict and the high economic stakes in the GMO conflict, the issue of GMOs is unlikely to develop into a full-scale transatlantic trade war. Genetic engineering, the process used to create GM seeds and foods and foods produced from them, is a technology used to isolate genes from one organism, manipulate them in the laboratory, and inject them into another organism. Supporters argue that the characteristics of these new plant varieties offer significant benefits to producers and consumers. They can benefit human health by adding vitamins and nutrients, potentially resulting in vitamin A-enhanced rice, "heart friendlier" oil, iron-enriched wheat, and other "health" foods. They can cut costs for farmers, whose savings can be passed on to consumers. They can increase yields, potentially spurring a new "green revolution" and benefiting food-scarce nations whose population growth outpaces their food supply. They can enhance environmental protection by reducing the use of pesticides, herbicides, and other chemical sprays. Nonetheless, GMO advocates concede that the benefits have so far been captured largely by You are not currently authenticated. View freely available titles: Page 1

2 Chapter 2 : When Cooperation Fails - Paperback - Mark A. Pollack; Gregory C. Shaffer - Oxford University Mark A. Pollack Professor and Jean Monnet Chair The Global Law and Politics of Genetically Modified Organisms, Greg Shaffer and I The US and EU regulatory. Social Law Table of contents 1. Regulating Uncertain Risks 2. National Systems on food and Biotechnology Section 1. Case Studies on Food Regulation 3. Food Safety in Poland: Case Studies on Biotechnology Regulation 8. GMO Regulation in the Netherlands: EU and International Models Between Trust and Safety, Ellen Vos European Regulation of GMOs: Improving the Legitimacy and Credibility of Risk Regulation: Science, Procedures, Participation and Deliberation Three Intimate Tales of Law and Science: Hope, Despair and Transcendence, Michelle Everson Sound Science in the European and Global Market: Karl Polanyi in Geneva, Christian Joerges show more Review quote "This volume provides an excellent, important, erudite and timely addition to the Law, Science and Society series edited by J. Paterson, University of Aberdeen and J. Webb, University of Warwick. Both the volume editors and many of the contributors are leading scholars in the area of regulating uncertain risks. As can be expected, they provide insightful and original additions to the literature [ This collection and its individual chapters will no doubt be used by those seeking to get to grips with the problem of regulating uncertain risks, and the importance of citizen participation, for many years to come. She has researched widely in the field of European Law and has particular interests in the areas of European regulatory law, European administrative and constitutional law and European citizenship. She has published extensively in the field of EU Law, institutional law comitology and agencies, market integration and risk regulation precautionary principle; food safety. Page 2

3 Chapter 3 : Table of contents for Uncertain risks regulated The Interaction of International and Domestic Law: Lessons from the Conflict over Genetically Modified Foods by Greg Shaffer and Mark Pollack As its title suggests, When Cooperation Fails has two distinct aims. Subjects Description Uncertain Risks Regulated compares various models of risk regulation in order to understand how these systems shape the relationship between law and science, and how they attempt to overcome public distrust in science-based decision-making. The book contributes to the ongoing debate relating to uncertainty and risks - and the difficulties faced by the European Union in particular - in regulating theses issues, taking account of both national and international constraints. Decisions must be taken in the face of uncertainty. And, whilst it is not possible to provide clear cut models of risk regulation, in focusing on regulatory practices at a national, EU and international level, the contributors to this volume aim to use fact finding as a core instrument of learning for risk regulation. Reviews "This volume provides an excellent, important, erudite and timely addition to the Law, Science and Society series edited by J. Paterson, University of Aberdeen and J. Webb, University of Warwick. Both the volume editors and many of the contributors are leading scholars in the area of regulating uncertain risks. As can be expected, they provide insightful and original additions to the literature [â ] the volume is replete with rich insights and so deserves further readings, even for those relatively familiar with risk regulation. This collection and its individual chapters will no doubt be used by those seeking to get to grips with the problem of regulating uncertain risks, and the importance of citizen participation, for many years to come. Regulating Uncertain Risks 2. National Systems on food and Biotechnology Section 1. Case Studies on Food Regulation 3. Food Safety in Poland: Case Studies on Biotechnology Regulation 8. GMO Regulation in the Netherlands: EU and International Models Between Trust and Safety, Ellen Vos European Regulation of GMOs: Improving the Legitimacy and Credibility of Risk Regulation: Science, Procedures, Participation and Deliberation Three Intimate Tales of Law and Science: Hope, Despair and Transcendence, Michelle Everson Sound Science in the European and Global Market: She has researched widely in the field of European Law and has particular interests in the areas of European regulatory law, European administrative and constitutional law and European citizenship. She has published extensively in the field of EU Law, institutional law comitology and agencies, market integration and risk regulation precautionary principle; food safety. About the Series Law, Science and Society Traditionally, the role of law has been to implement political decisions concerning the relationship between science and society. Increasingly, however, as our understanding of the complex dynamic between law, science and society deepens, this instrumental characterisation is seen to be inadequate, but as yet we have only a limited conception of what might take its place. In short, there is a need for new research and scholarship, and it is to that need that this series responds. Page 3

4 Chapter 4 : Project MUSE - Biotechnology: The Next Transatlantic Trade War? "The EU Regulatory System for GMOs," in Ellen Vos, Michelle Everson and Joanne Scott, eds. Uncertain Risks Regulated: National, EU and International Regulatory Models Compared (London: University College/Cavendish Press, ), pp. Peel, Jacqueline "When Cooperation Fails: Opponents of genetic engineering, on the other hand, have stressed uncertainties over the nature and extent of risks associated with GMOs, and the potential for GMO agriculture to have adverse socioeconomic impacts. Whereas the US has embraced GMO agriculture and genetically modified foods â adopting a permissive regulatory system that sees no real distinction between GMOs and their conventional counterpart organisms [3] â the EU has taken a highly precautionary approach to the technology and its use, accompanied by the introduction of stringent regulatory controls on the approval and marketing of GMOs, and on the labelling of GM foods. Rather, it skilfully uses the GMO dispute to explore a range of international legal and political theories, and to draw from the dispute broader lessons for law and policy, and for the role of international institutions in managing situations where cooperative efforts fail. In and of themselves, the complexities of the EC â Biotech case lend themselves to a book-length analysis of this kind. For those of us who lie outside the transatlantic realm of EUâ US politics, the concluding chapter of the book also includes an interesting, albeit brief, examination of the global ramifications of EUâ US regulatory differences over GMOs, especially for developing countries. It takes as its departure point the puzzle of why the EU and US â despite their many political similarities â have taken sharply different approaches to the regulation of GMOs. What follows is a succinct and informative discussion of the arguments for and against the technology of genetic engineering, [9] and of the EU and US risk regulatory systems for GMOs respectively. However, the authors do more than simply describe the transatlantic regulatory differences that have arisen with respect to agricultural biotechnology. Indeed, the central goal of Chapter 2 is to explain why and how these differences arose and persist. This examination is framed by discussion of theories of transnational regulatory networks and their potential for deliberation. In recent times, many international relations scholars and international lawyers have been attracted by the idea of transnational networks â essentially collectives of government officials and advising experts â as a forum for regulatory cooperation. Chapter 3 first provides a helpful overview of theories of transnational network governance and deliberation, noting the limited empirical evidence to date to support claims of networks as a forum of deliberative democracy. This is followed by a brief survey of the various EUâ US efforts at regulatory cooperation across a range of fields that have had a mixed record of success, as well as a short discussion of different approaches to risk regulation that either endorse or reject the role of broad participation in decision-making. The analysis of the reasons for failure suggests some interesting lessons for future attempts at regulatory cooperation on complex risk issues that, like GMOs, are attended by significant scientific uncertainty. In either case, the GMO case study suggests the differing attitudes to risk that underlie different risk regulatory approaches taken in circumstances of uncertainty will be resistant to change via deliberative processes. The only area in which the authors found significant evidence of deliberative decision-making was in bilateral and multilateral arrangements involving a dialogue among scientific and technical experts. In this regard, Chapter 4 examines four case studies: Many readers will already be familiar with the development of GMO-related treaties like the Biosafety Protocol, [25] as well as of the SPS Agreement and its dispute settlement procedure, that has taken place since the late s. Conventionally soft and hard international law are considered to be complementary as in the case of a soft law instrument which builds support for the development of binding customary international law norms. This insight has important practical consequences. They prompt internal responses within the WTO regime to preserve its own social and political legitimacy. For instance, if the Panel had adopted a deferential stance when reviewing EU GMO regulations as has been advocated by a number of commentators for the purposes of SPS review, [40] this would equate to allocating Page 4

5 responsibility for risk decision-making to domestic regulatory bodies that might be responsive to the risk concerns of their own publics but take little account of the interests of affected outsiders. In this way, the authors note that though the Panel sought to avoid deciding substantive issues of risk regulation itself, its report may nevertheless act to empower actors in intra-european political processes that can help to mitigate the dispute. Left open is the question of whether this approach is consistent with the broader goal of maintaining the social legitimacy of the WTO as an institution of global risk governance in the face of strong concerns over preserving national regulatory autonomy. Although the regulatory authorities in the EU have resumed approvals of GM crop varieties, [42] strong member state and public resistance remains in relation to GMOs and GM foods in Europe. This has resulted in a significant elaboration and tightening of the EU regulatory framework for GMOs that has tended to make it more, rather than less, difficult for GM products from the US to enter the EU market. Chapter 6 of the book reviews the developments in both the EU and the US in the field of agricultural biotechnology policy and law over the course of the past two decades. The authors find that international and market pressures, including the results of WTO dispute settlement, have provided only weak incentives for the EU and US to change their respective regulatory systems. By contrast, in the EU they find significant reform efforts but without much change to the end result in terms of the acceptance of GMOs. Pollack and Shaffer note that this situation is not set in stone â EU consumers may become more accepting of GMOs if varieties are introduced with clearer public benefits, just as pressures may mount for reform in the US if there are environmental or food safety crises linked to GM products, including new, more controversial GMOs such as transgenic animals. For the foreseeable future, however, it seems that EUâ US regulatory differences over agricultural biotechnology are here to stay. The final chapter of the book takes a step back from the transatlantic perspective at the heart of the previous analysis to assess the impact of the ongoing GMO conflict globally, particularly for developing countries. The chapter also seeks to generalise five broader law and policy lessons from the GMO case study. The concluding part of the chapter, dealing with the implications of the transatlantic GMO dispute for developing countries, contains a survey of the trends in global agricultural biotechnology policy development. It notes how the polarisation between the EU and US, and the consequent lack of development of a global regulatory standard for GMOs, has led to a great diversity in regulatory approaches taken by developing countries. In our region, some large developing countries such as Argentina, India and China have become major GM growers though the latter two nations have focused mainly on non-food crops such as GM cotton, as has also been the case in Australia. The uptake and home-grown development of biotechnology by leading developing countries such as China and India may well precipitate a more general adoption of GMOs in other developing countries. As Pollack and Shaffer point out, from a legal perspective this might well constitute delay that would be actionable under the interpretation of the SPS Agreement adopted by the WTO Panel in EC â Biotech, but politically, it amounts to the lowest risk strategy. Ultimately, the authors conclude that the EUâ US conflict over GMOs, and the global future of agricultural biotechnology more generally, is unlikely to be settled in international courts or multilateral negotiating processes. Indeed, they stress that it will be developments of the technology of genetic engineering that demonstrate its broader public benefits â especially for the poor in developing countries â that are likely to be crucial. In the end, this conclusion points to the true limits of international law in dealing with a controversial risk issue like GMOs. International legal processes and global institutions may help to manage the fallout of divisive risk disputes but their resolution depends upon social and political processes, as well as technological developments, that lead to a consensus that any risks of a technology are outweighed by its potential benefits. Auf dem Weg in eine andere Moderne first published ]. Risk Regulation in Situations of Scientific Uncertainty: They address the potential for a shift in such framings, through the involvement of developing countries, in Chapter 7. Peter M Haas, Saving the Mediterranean: The Politics of International Environmental Cooperation A Commentary Oxford University Press, The article contains a detailed breakdown of the determinations of the Panel, which is invaluable given that the report itself runs to more than pages. Towards a Common Law of International Trade? Reports issues in proceedings with multiple Page 5

6 complainants are often identical: Page 6

7 Chapter 5 : Uncertain Risks Regulated - Ellen Vos, Michelle Everson - Bok () Bokus The EU Regulatory System for GMOs, Greg Shaffer and Mark Pollack European Regulation of GMOs: Thinking about 'Judicial Review' in the WTO, Joanne Scott The Codex Alimentarius Commission and its Food Safety Measures in the Light of their New Status, Mariëlle Matthee Part 4: Improving the Legitimacy and Credibility of Risk Regulation. The Interaction of International and Domestic Law: The specific empirical aim is to provide a definitive and theoretically informed account of one of the most bitter and politically charged international disputes of the past two decades, between the United States and the European Union over the regulation of genetically modified foods and crops. Our theoretical aim, however, goes far beyond the specifics of the GMO case: Our approach is interdisciplinary, drawing from international law and political science, and multi-level, examining the recursive interaction of domestic and international law and politics over time. We start by inquiring why the US and EU systems for risk regulation are so different in this area, then examine failed efforts to bridge these differences through transgovernmental networks and various multilateral regimes, and finally investigate how international law developments in these fragmented regimes have fed back into domestic legal systems in the US and EU as well as in emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil, affecting the future of genetically modified crops and foods. Our central arguments can be boiled down to five key points. First, on the domestic law front, we apply theories of comparative law and politics that attribute differences in domestic risk regulation to differences in organized interests, political institutions, culture and ideas, and contingent events. We contend that the stark differences in the US and EU regulatory systems were not preordained by interest-group, institutional or cultural configurations of the two sides, but were the result of multiple and, to some extent, contingent causes. Nonetheless, we show that the differences have become entrenched over time and are now strongly path-dependent and resistant to change. We find, however, that the record of transatlantic deliberation on genetically modified organisms GMOs has largely been one of failure. Deliberation, we argue, is a hothouse flower that flourishes only under restrictive conditions. The sharp disagreements, intense politicization, and distributive conflicts that characterize agricultural biotechnology have all prevented US and EU policymakers from engaging in a joint deliberative search for the best policy in this area. We argue that cooperation has been frustrated in practice by the existence of severe distributive conflict between the two sides, which has given rise to overlapping and sometimes purposefully inconsistent regimes for trade, the environment, and food safety. The interaction of hard- and soft-law regimes, rather than progressively moving toward a new consensus, may instead perpetuate substantive deadlock over regulatory approaches, especially where conflicts involve powerful states. More specifically, we apply a comparative institutional analytic framework to examine the radically different institutional implications of the interpretive choices that the WTO judicial panel faced in the EU-Biotech case. We demonstrate how interpretive choices by a WTO judicial body can attempt to allocate decision-making to different institutional processes in which constituencies of different countries, with varying priorities, perceptions, and abilities to be heard, participate to varying and always imperfect degrees. We find that the WTO panel largely took a procedural approach in its decision, refusing to articulate a single substantive standard on GMO regulation, but instead insisting on certain procedural requirements that all states must observe in adopting their own domestic regulations. In the process, we contend, the WTO has empowered domestic political actors such as the European Commission with an interest in complying with WTO law, and, as a result, has encouraged regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to operate more transparently, taking into greater account the effects of their actions on third parties. We demonstrate that, despite some domestic changes on each side, the US and EU regulatory systems for agricultural biotechnology show few signs of real convergence toward a common regulatory model. There has, nonetheless, been some domestic change on both sides of the Atlantic, due at least in part to external pressures from international markets and international regimes. In the EU, the Commission and biotech companies have been somewhat empowered by international developments to resume approvals of new GM varieties after a Page 7

8 long moratorium and to challenge member state bans against those already formally approved. On the US side, meanwhile, regulators have increased requirements for trials before the commercial release of many GM seeds so that these varieties, in fact, are treated distinctly from more conventional ones, despite official US proclamations to the contrary. Even in the absence of tightened regulation, moreover, US farmers have demonstrated a reluctance to adopt new GM foods and crops which they fear will be rejected in the EU and other large export markets. The overall picture, we argue, is one in which the two regulatory systems for GM foods and crops remain essentially polarized, but where key actors on both sides struggle to minimize the economic impacts and political tensions of persistent regulatory differences. In sum, the story of the transatlantic GMO conflict is largely one of failed attempts at bilateral and multilateral cooperation. Yet our story is not a counsel of despair, for in addition to examining how and why cooperation fails, we address ways in which states and regimes can facilitate the ongoing management of regulatory conflict, and, over time, together with transnational market forces, influence national regulatory and commercial practices in a somewhat more accommodating manner. System friction between two entrenched regulatory systems is unlikely to be decisively settled in the near future, but the dispute can be managed, with key roles for international law and international institutions. Page 8

9 Chapter 6 : When Cooperation Fails : Mark A. Pollack : Note: Citations are based on reference standards. However, formatting rules can vary widely between applications and fields of interest or study. The specific requirements or preferences of your reviewing publisher, classroom teacher, institution or organization should be applied. We are particularly pleased that all three appreciated our efforts to engage in an interdisciplinary and multi-level analysis, to do empirical justice to the complexities of the GMO dispute, and to identify the broader implications of the case for the study of international law and politics. We address three issues in particular that deserve a response: We will deal with the first two here and the other one on hard-soft law in a separate post. Where Do Our Sympathies Lie? Our primary aim in When Cooperation Fails is analytic â to understand the roots of the dispute, the various failures to resolve it through bilateral and multilateral cooperation, the international law that has arisen from it, and the impact of that law, in particular of WTO dispute settlement. In doing so, we reveal one explicit normative bias, namely in favor of careful and realistic dispute management, which recognizes the limits of cooperation and respects the democratically adopted regulatory frameworks of the two sides, yet also encourages both sides to take into account the effects of their policies on third parties â and, in the process, to avert a mutually harmful trade war. Even here, however, we have kept our own normative views in the background, choosing instead to highlight our positive analysis of the obstacles to successful cooperation and to any reform of deeply entrenched domestic regulatory frameworks. One of us Pollack is primarily a scholar of European Union politics, while the other Shaffer undertook much of his research for the book in Brussels, Geneva, and Rome, visiting the headquarters of various international institutions. As a result, we believe that we understand the EU approach and position at least as well as the American. We do not assume that the more precautionary European approach to GMOs is either protectionist or irrational, and we agree with scholars like Jonathan Wiener and Michael Rogers who note that the United States is strongly precautionary in other areas such as the regulation of carcinogens and nuclear power. We also do not advocate the convergence of the EU regulatory framework on the US model or vice versa, nor do we believe that such convergence is likely anytime in the near or medium-term future. That being said, we do not contest that any piece of scholarship frames issues, and that such framings have implications for normative position-taking. To the extent that we do, as Rebecca suggests, adopt language that appears tilted in favor of the US approach, we suspect that this reflects in large part our focus on the role of international trade law, which as we note in the book is more congenial to the US approach due to its emphasis on scientific risk assessment and its silence on other socioeconomic or normative criteria that public officials might wish to take into account when regulating GMOs. Regarding the reference to the EU regulatory system as a Potemkin village, this is indeed a widespread complaint among foreign stakeholders, and also among European biotech firms such as Bayer Cropscience, which have seen their applications stalled for years in the EU regulatory process with no substantive engagement. In any event, we hope, and believe, that none of our analysis in the book relies in any way on a preference for one or the other regulatory framework, both of which appear to be here to stay with only minor, path-dependent changes at the margins. Managing, if Not Resolving, the Dispute A common theme of all three commentators is an appreciation of our claim that neither traditional cooperative efforts nor WTO litigation is likely to settle the dispute definitively and force convergence of the two very different regulatory frameworks. Nevertheless, the period since the adoption of the WTO panel ruling in December has been striking in terms of the relative peace between the two sides, with the United States agreeing to hold off on withdrawing trade concessions from the EU pending compliance, and indeed with Canada settling its dispute with the EU over the issue. To some extent, we argue in the book, this is due to market developments in the US, where farmers and biotech firms have grown increasingly skittish about adopting new biotech crops prior to approval of those crops in major export markets such as the EU. In addition, however, a major element in the ongoing truce between the two sides has been the sophisticated if Page 9

10 sometimes thankless strategy employed by the European Commission to defuse the conflict while retaining the essential features of the EU regulatory system. Instead, the Commission has focused its approvals, and its challenges to national safeguard bans, on a limited number of products that are economically important to US and Canadian farmers and biotech firms. By focusing on the sale as opposed to the cultivation of a limited number of GM crops that Canadian and US farmers actually care about, the Commission may succeed in defusing, if not eliminating, the long-standing transatlantic GMO dispute â and in so doing, reduce the international legal pressure on the EU to reform or weaken its own rules. At this writing, the limited number of EU approvals has not yet satisfied the US, but even the US has so far agreed not to impose trade sanctions against the EU, as it is legally entitled to do, while the Commission continues its efforts to approve particular GM foods, such as various corn varieties that are commercially important to US farmers, and which are of often used in animal feed. Page 10

11 Chapter 7 : Uncertain Risks Regulated: 1st Edition (Paperback) - Routledge Mark A. Pollack and Gregory C. Shaffer, "Between National Fears and International Discipline: The Regulation of Biotechnology in the European Union," at the Conference of Europeanists, Chicago, March ; revised version to be presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, Sept., Recensioner i media "This volume provides an excellent, important, erudite and timely addition to the Law, Science and Society series edited by J. Paterson, University of Aberdeen and J. Webb, University of Warwick. Both the volume editors and many of the contributors are leading scholars in the area of regulating uncertain risks. As can be expected, they provide insightful and original additions to the literature [ This collection and its individual chapters will no doubt be used by those seeking to get to grips with the problem of regulating uncertain risks, and the importance of citizen participation, for many years to come. She has researched widely in the field of European Law and has particular interests in the areas of European regulatory law, European administrative and constitutional law and European citizenship. She has published extensively in the field of EU Law, institutional law comitology and agencies, market integration and risk regulation precautionary principle; food safety. Regulating Uncertain Risks 2. National Systems on food and Biotechnology Section 1. Case Studies on Food Regulation 3. Food Safety in Poland: Case Studies on Biotechnology Regulation 8. GMO Regulation in the Netherlands: EU and International Models Between Trust and Safety, Ellen Vos European Regulation of GMOs: Improving the Legitimacy and Credibility of Risk Regulation: Science, Procedures, Participation and Deliberation Three Intimate Tales of Law and Science: Hope, Despair and Transcendence, Michelle Everson Sound Science in the European and Global Market: Karl Polanyi in Geneva, Christian Joerges. Page 11

12 Chapter 8 : Law, Science and Society: Uncertain Risks Regulated (, Paperback) ebay Risk Regulation, GMOs and the Limits of Deliberation, in Unveiling the Council of the European Union: Games Governments Play in Brussels (Daniel Naurin & Helen Wallace, eds., Palgrave MacMillan, ) Mark A. Pollack. Alle productspecificaties Samenvatting The transatlantic dispute over genetically modified organisms GMOs has brought into conflict the United States and the European Union, two long-time allies and economically interdependent democracies with a long record of successful cooperation. Yet the dispute - pitting a largely acceptant US against an EU deeply suspicious of GMOs - has developed into one of the most bitter and intractable transatlantic and global conflicts, resisting efforts at negotiated resolution and resulting in a bitterly contested legal battle before the World Trade Organization. Professors Pollack and Shaffer investigate the obstacles to reconciling regulatory differences among nations through international cooperation, through the lens of the GMO dispute. The book addresses the dynamic interactions of domestic law and politics, transnational networks, international regimes, and global markets, through a theoretically grounded and empirically comprehensive analysis of the governance of GM foods and crops. They demonstrate that the deeply politicized, entrenched and path-dependent nature of the regulation of GMOs in the US and the EU has fundamentally shaped negotiations and decision-making at the international level, limiting the prospects for deliberation and providing incentives for both sides to engage in hard bargaining and to shop for favorable international forums. They then assess the impacts, and the limits, of international pressures on domestic US and European law, politics and business practice, which have remained strikingly resistant to change. International cooperation in areas like GMO regulation, the authors conclude, must overcome multiple obstacles, legal and political, domestic and international. Any effective response to this persistent dispute, they argue, must recognize both the obstacles to successful cooperation, and the options that remain for each side when cooperation fails. It skillfully explores the complex interaction between the national and international dimensions of the GMO dispute in a way that clearly illuminates both the potential and limitations of international regulatory cooperation. Shaffer and Pollack have made a major contribution to our understanding of the legal and political dynamics of regulatory-related trade disputes. It is an outstanding and highly informative study of the interaction of four global regulatory regimes and the domestic legal and political responses to them. Pollack and Shaffer provide a model for interdisciplinary collaboration. It offers many of the elements that need to be taken into account in moving the matter forward in international law in coming years. It is an excellent piece of analytical research and highly recommended to all working in agricultural biotechnology regulation and beyond. Pollack and Shaffer evaluate the potential outcomes of WTO panel approaches beyond that actually adopted in the US-EU dispute using severalysis methodologies. Their comparative institutional analysis of offers new and important insights into the consequences of what might superficially seem to be a typical question ofs exegesis and international treaties. The book ably reveals the potentially weighty political and institutionalgal consequences of choosing one seemingly technical legaloice interpretation of a treaty over another, and of the choices of treaties identified as those relevant to the dispute. Pollack and Shaffer clearly state that the US and EU regulatory frameworks have been produced in such different ways that they will be resilient to change, even in the face of international pressures, such as WTO rulings. The text contains many facts, a good description, and its scope of research is wide. This book will reward the reader - and cannot be ignored by anyone interested in GMO conflict. The excellent, original, and highly inspiring treatment of this issue, in both theoretical and empirical terms across political and legal disciplines, brings to the fore the deep interdependency in the bilateral, multilateral, and transnational dimensions of the US-EU relations. The five lessons that the authors draw in the concluding chapter open new venues for further research on this matter. But above all, this book is the fruit of a highly successful, tenacious, and systematic research endeavour that provides new insights into this fascinating topic. Page 12

13 Chapter 9 : Uncertain Risks Regulated : Ellen Vos : David Andrews, Mark A. Pollack, Gregory C. Shaffer, Mark A. Pollack, and Helen Wallace, eds., The New Transatlantic Agenda and the Future of Transatlantic Economic Governance. Biotechnology, Risk Regulation, and the Failure of Cooperation ; 2. The Domestic Sources of the Conflict: Change, Continuity and Lack of Convergence ; 7. It skillfully explores the complex interaction between the national and international dimensions of the GMO dispute in a way that clearly illuminates both the potential and limitations of international regulatory cooperation. Shaffer and Pollack have made a major contribution to our understanding of the legal and political dynamics of regulatory-related trade disputes. It offers many of the elements that need to be taken into account in moving the matter forward in international law in coming years. It is an excellent piece of analytical research and highly recommended to all working in agricultural biotechnology regulation and beyond. Pollack and Shaffer evaluate the potential outcomes of WTO panel approaches beyond that actually adopted in the US-EU dispute using several methodologies. Their comparative institutional analysis offers new and important insights into the consequences of what might superficially seem to be a typical question of exegesis and international treaties. The book ably reveals the potentially weighty political and institutional consequences of choosing one seemingly technical legal interpretation of a treaty over another, and of the choice of treaties identified as those relevant to the dispute. Pollack and Shaffer clearly state that the US and EU regulatory frameworks have been produced in such different ways that they will be resilient to change, even in the face of international pressures, such as WTO rulings. The text contains many facts, a good description, and its scope of research is wide. This book will reward the reader - and cannot be ignored by anyone interested in GMO conflict. The excellent, original, and highly inspiring treatment of this issue, in both theoretical and empirical terms across political and legal disciplines, brings to the fore the deep interdependency in the bilateral, multilateral, and transnational dimensions of the US-EU relations. The five lessons that the authors draw in the concluding chapter open new venues for further research on this matter. But above all, this book is the fruit of a highly successful, tenacious, and systematic research endeavour that provides new insights into this fascinating topic. Pollack is Associate Professor of Political Science at Temple University, where he teaches classes in international relations and European Union politics. He received his Ph. He has also taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was Senior Research Fellow in the transatlantic relations program at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy His research agenda focuses on the role of international institutions in the regional and global governance, with specific projects examining the delegation of powers to the supranational organizations in the European Union, the creation of new mechanisms for the governance of the transatlantic relationship, the global governance of genetically modified organisms, and the "mainstreaming " of gender issues in international organizations. Professor Gregory Shaffer is Melvin C. Page 13