Of the regulatory policies for GMOs in Europe and the United States, I think the European approach should be prioritized.

Why do you think the European approach to GMO regulation should be prioritized?

GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) are the application of genetic recombination technology to agriculture, and were expected to revolutionize productivity, nutrition, and the environment. Therefore, several countries in the Americas, including the United States, have begun to produce and export GM crops. However, due to the human and environmental issues and the rights of small farmers, the United States and Europe have different GMO regulatory policies. Although each country’s GMO regulation is different, it can be broadly categorized into the European and American approaches. Korea’s GMO regulation is more similar to that of the United States. I believe that the European approach to GMO regulation should be prioritized over the American approach.
Europe regulates GMOs in many ways, including strict risk assessment and monitoring, based on the precautionary principle. The precautionary principle is intended to reduce the cost of reducing or eliminating environmental damage by anticipating and avoiding it before it occurs. International environmental law recognizes the precautionary principle as one of its main tenets, requiring that appropriate precautionary measures be taken to protect the environment if there is reason to believe that an action will cause environmental damage, even if there is no conclusive evidence of a causal link between the action and its consequences. Europe initially imported GMOs by adopting the U.S. principle of substantial equivalence. The principle of substantial equivalence states that if the characteristics of the introduced gene are well known and there is scientific certainty that it is harmless to a degree substantially equivalent to that of the original food, then the safety of the recombinant is assumed to be the same as the original food. However, NGOs questioned substantial equivalence based on scientific uncertainty, and their efforts contributed to European experts applying a more stringent standard for substantial equivalence. Eventually, European regulatory policy was based on the principle of precaution, not substantial equivalence. In the United States, civil society organizations criticized the principle of substantial equivalence, but their views were not reflected in regulatory policy. I will explain the rationale that the European regulatory approach should be preferred over the American approach in terms of expertise, risk, and small farmers’ rights.

Expertise

The countries that produce GMOs continue to conduct research on the risks of GMOs. Some studies claim catastrophic risks, such as animals avoiding GMO crop fields and a 10% reduction in lifespan in rats fed commercially available GMO foods, while others show no problems with the same foods. There are also a lot of rumors floating around the internet about the dangers of GMOs. The risks of GMOs are still uncertain, and research and experience are very limited. Given this scientific uncertainty and lack of empirical evidence, one might wonder whether NGOs should have any input into GMO regulatory policy. However, the flip side is that the expertise of those who have been deemed experts in this field cannot be judged with certainty. If even the objectivity of science is only historically and socially recognized by groups, I believe that such expertise is not inherently given, but rather accepted in a social and cultural context, like a paradigm. From this perspective, NGOs can be seen as experts who can bring the voices of environmentalists, consumers, and small farmers to the table when it comes to regulating GMOs, which have been viewed only through the eyes of GMO producers and scientific experts.

The risks of GMOs

GMOs are a technology that can help agricultural development by being nutritionally and productively superior to conventional crops. Therefore, applying a blanket precautionary principle to GMOs could hinder scientific progress and block the way to solving the food problem in the Third World. However, the GMO ban in Europe is not an outright ban on GMOs. They have not yet been sufficiently tested for safety, so mandatory labeling and monitoring will be used to keep an eye on the risks. Of course, the United States is also aware of the risks that GMOs can cause. Therefore, there are regulations such as non-GM refuges and limits on pesticide concentrations to prevent environmental contamination, but to a much smaller extent than in Europe. However, this does not mean that the U.S. government is insensitive to the safety of its citizens or the environment. I don’t think the risks posed by GMOs are absolute, as different societies and cultures may perceive different levels of risk from the same object. If we look at the mad cow disease controversy in Korea due to the importation of American beef, we can infer that the level of risk perceived by the public is highly influenced by political, social, and cultural factors. Especially in areas like GMOs, where we don’t know what the outcome will be or what the likelihood is, it’s impossible to determine the degree of risk. Therefore, for risks like GMOs, where the magnitude of potential harm is large and could affect future generations, we believe that the precautionary principle should be used to regulate them, even if there is a culture that deems them not to be a significant risk.

The nature of regulatory science

One criticism of applying the precautionary principle, such as the European regulation, is that it creates unnecessary social debate and additional costs. In reality, GMOs may not have the catastrophic side effects we fear, and may even be a viable technology that can help solve humanity’s food problems. From this point of view, it’s hard to say whether European or American regulations are better. However, the exact risk of GMOs cannot be measured with the current experimental data and technology we have, and different cultures perceive different degrees of risk, so these regulations should not be judged solely on their outcomes. As such, I don’t think the regulatory issue of determining the risk of GM crops should be treated the same as the issue of general research-based science. In the case of research-based science, the expected outcomes can be judged within the paradigm of existing experimental results and theories. However, GMO regulatory policies, while closely related to science, are more appropriately viewed as socially and politically motivated rather than judged by the standards of the scientific community. I also believe that the European policy-making process is procedurally more legitimate because the public is affected by the outcome, not the paradigm crisis, and the regulatory decision-making process includes input from consumers and environmental organizations.

What about farmers’ rights in relation to GMOs?

Regulatory policy on GMOs involves a number of issues beyond the science. First, GM crops are being patented and commercialized by multinational corporations, which violates small farmers’ right to control their seeds and can lead to the demise of small family farmers. It is not clear which is more important, the rights of farmers or the dangers of GMOs. This suggests that we should recognize GMOs as a social issue, not just a scientific issue. Also, while we have focused on the differences in regulation between Europe and the United States, GMOs cannot be seen as a US/European issue. The US will not only export GM crops to Europe, but will try to export GMOs to every country in the world. If Europe, one of the most influential countries (organizations) outside of the United States, fails to apply the precautionary principle, other WTO members will be forced to import GM crops from the United States without a choice. Although it may be argued that this reason is inadequate to be used as a basis for arguing that Europe should implement a regulatory policy based on the precautionary principle, this fact should not be overlooked.

Conclusion

The United States has determined that the human and environmental risks posed by GM crops are acceptable. In most cases, especially for an innovative scientific field like GMOs, these risks are acceptable. However, these risks may not always be acceptable for the sake of technological innovation. These issues should be judged not only on the basis of scientific knowledge, but also by a procedurally justified social consensus. The U.S., in particular, insists on substantial equivalence based on scientific criteria, but GMOs are a complex issue that cannot be solved by scientific criteria alone. In fact, even the scientific knowledge used here is not a set of laws or absolute logics, but rather a rationalization of social conditions. Therefore, European regulatory policies should be preferred to those of the U.S. because they are more procedurally justified, taking into account social, economic, and environmental factors that are not directly related to science in the regulatory policy-making process.