Wednesday, May 5, 2010

‘shrimp-turtle’ in US

NYT blog reports that "About 35 endangered sea turtles have washed up dead on beaches along the Gulf of Mexico." Regardless of where I'm working for, personally, I do love sea turtles (honestly, much more than other wild animals), and therefore this news was tragically sad for me...

According to the article, those suspected of killing the turtles are not BP's oil, but shrimpers. Shrimpers? Shrimpers and turtles?? That sounds familiar...

Yes, 'shrimp-turtle'is a classic WTO law case, in which US claimed the legitimacy of its import ban of shrimps that were "harvested with technology that may adversely affect certain sea turtles." Simply put, US's measure was ruled as legitimate under GATT Article 20 (Exceptions) unless it is applied in a discriminating way between WTO members.

But, I believe that WTO Appellate Body's rule premised successful enforcement of US domestic Endangered Species Act, which requires US shrimpers to use “turtle excluder devices” (TEDs) when fishing in areas where there is a significant likelihood of encountering sea turtles. Now, this premise looks somehow questionable, "the real culprit" has not yet been clear, though.

If this premise had gone, how would it affect the conclusion of 'shrimp-turtle' case? I think this point has not been discussed so much.
Maxwell School, Syracuse, May 5, 19:22

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