Silvia Ribeiro*
E
n 2016, Uruguay won an emblematic case against the million-dollar lawsuit that the tobacco company Phillips Morris International (PMI) filed against that country to prevent Uruguay from legislating to defend the health of its own population.
The latter is what the United States intends to bring Mexico to a dispute panel on August 17 within the framework of the North American trade agreement (T-MEC), to prevent Mexico from protecting its own population from the consumption of transgenic corn and exposure to the cancer-causing herbicide glyphosate.
In the case of Phillips Morris against Uruguay, the transnational considered that the country harmed its profits by limiting indiscriminate consumption and tobacco advertising. He alleged that with its measures to protect the health of the population, Uruguay was violating the bilateral investment agreement between Uruguay and Switzerland, the headquarters of PMI, for which reason he filed a lawsuit before the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). ). The Uruguayan government had previously taken various measures to discourage tobacco use, but in 2006 it became the first Latin American country to ban smoking in enclosed public spaces and instituted regulations on tobacco advertising, promotion, and sales.
The process took more than six years, in 2016 ICSID ruled in favor of Uruguay in a historic ruling that established international jurisprudence (validity of principle in similar cases). It established that Uruguay had exercised its sovereign right and its State duty to protect public health. It sentenced the company to pay the expenses of the trial and of the defendants (https://tinyurl.com/mrncx7xp).
Although now the accusation against Mexico is presented as a conflict between governments in the T-MEC, in reality the interests that the United States is representing are those of a handful of transnational agribusinesses (See transgenic beaters
, https://tinyurl.com/2w8fapxy).
It has been shown on multiple occasions, for example with the documents leaked by Wikileaks, that Monsanto (now Bayer) and other transnational transgenics and agrochemicals have used the United States government as a channel to attack countries, force them to accept transgenic crops, as well as insult independent studies and scientists.
Mexico has been a victim of these pressures since before the first decree was issued limiting glyphosate and prohibiting the planting and consumption of corn for human consumption in 2020. The organization US Right to know revealed in an article in The Guardianby emails to which they accessed by right of access to information, that Bayer-Monsanto worked since 2019 with the United States Trade Representative and other officials of that government, so that they pressured the Mexican government not to limit or prohibit the import of glyphosate or transgenic corn (https://tinyurl.com/3ew92z5j).
Despite the fact that the United States now says that Mexico has not responded to its claims, this, like so many other things they claim, is not true. These threats, more than lawsuits, even led to a second presidential decree in 2023, which extended the period for the gradual substitution of glyphosate and limited the ban on transgenic corn in human nutrition to only its presence in tortillas and corn dough. Since the corn used for these purposes is fundamentally white corn, of which Mexico produces more than is used for domestic consumption, this does not affect imports. In addition, the same decree explicitly says that it does not apply to imports for the livestock industry and other industrial uses, which is where corn imported from the United States goes. For its part, Conahcyt added to its repository of documents related to the case, the organization of a series of seminars with scientists from many countries, who shared a large volume of information on the harmful effects on health and the environment of GMOs. and glyphosate ( ).
Why then does the United States insist and escalate the conflict? On the one hand, because the issue enters into the electoral context of both countries and they seek the favor of those who promote industrial and toxic agriculture, in addition to fishing for other interests at stake that have nothing to do with this specific conflict.
For agribusiness companies, even if imports are not affected, it is essential to attack any reason that shows that their seeds and pesticides are harmful to health. With its long tail of corruption and purchase of scientists for hire (https://tinyurl.com/bdebytrk) the transnationals have sown a lot of confusion despite the evidence that shows damage to health. Just as the tobacco industry has done for decades.
The parallel with the reasons for Phillips Morris against Uruguay is even clearer. What is at stake is preventing Mexico from exercising the sovereignty of legislating to protect the health of the population.
*Researcher of the ETC Group.
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