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The Reasoning Structure in Legal Disputes on the International Trade of Biotechnology: From a Judicial Balance by Chance to a Judicial Balance by Design

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 May 2021

Alessandra GUIDA Open the ORCID record for Alessandra GUIDA [Opens in a new window]
Alessandra GUIDA*
Affiliation:
Admitted lawyer, PhD candidate and casual academic at Macquarie Law School, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia; email: [email protected].
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Abstract

The international trade in biotech products boosts national economies and advances scientific as well as technology innovation. However, while trading these products increases the spread of benefits on a global scale, it also increases risks to human health and the environment (ie biosafety). This is because the effects of this technology on biosafety are still highly uncertain. Against this background, the judicial bodies under the World Trade Organization (WTO) find themselves in the middle of an intricate and polarised debate in which a proper judicial balance between free trade and biosafety becomes fundamental in order to determine whether requests for ensuring human and environmental health justify trade restrictions. This paper aims to highlight that the WTO is institutionally unready for balancing economic and non-economic values. In suggesting how to rationalise the judicial balance between the competing interests in the context of biotechnology, this paper demonstrates that the judicial adoption of a well-structured proportionality analysis can turn the current balance by chance into a balance by structure.

Type
Articles
Information
European Journal of Risk Regulation , Volume 12 , Issue 3: Special Issue on Biotechnology in International Economic Law and Human Rights , September 2021 , pp. 602 - 617
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

I gratefully acknowledge the financial support for this study provided by Macquarie University.

References

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48 Bernal Pulido, supra, note 38, 195.

49 ibid.

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52 ibid.

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59 Alexy, supra, note 57, 514.

60 Decisions of the German Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfGE) 90, 145; Alexy, supra, note 42.

61 Alexy, supra, note 51, 435.

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72 ibid, 461.

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75 Klatt and Meister, supra, note 63, 128.

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85 Ortino, supra, note 43, 420.