The United States, on January 26, 1996, lodged a formal complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO) over the European Union's (EU) ban on the importation of meat derived from animals treated with growth hormones. The ban, which went into effect on January 1, 1989, has resulted in sharply lower U.S. exports of red meat to the European Union. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the ban costs U.S. producers $100 million annually. The U.S. challenge to the hormone ban is based on arguments that it has no scientific basis, causes injury to U.S. livestock producers, and thus violates the 1994 Uruguay Round Agreement on health and safety measures used to restrict imports (the so-called Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement, SPS). The U.S. complaint is a major test of the Uruguay Round's SPS agreement on strengthened rules and procedures for dealing with food safety and health measures that restrain trade and of the WTO's dispute settlement process. (source:summary)
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