What’s the Beef? Canada Skewers US Appeal of WTO Meat Labelling Dispute

On May 18, 2015, the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization (WTO) issued a report agreeing with earlier rulings that the US violated WTO rules in applying county of origin labelling (COOL) on beef, pork, and other meat products.

Canada initiated the WTO dispute proceedings against the US and was later joined by Mexico and other countries. The WTO dispute settlement panels repeatedly found that the US COOL requirements placed an unfair trade burden on imported meat products.

20. Appellate Body largely confirmed the earlier decisions, ruling that the COOL record-keeping and verification requirements for imported livestock impose a disproportionate and unnecessary burden on producers and processors of livestock, causing increased cost for imported meat. In particular, the Appellate Body noted how upstream producers must track a large amount of information for the purpose of providing consumers with information on origin; however, only a small amount of this information is ultimately communicated to consumers in an understandable or accurate manner. Between 57.7% and 66.7% of beef and between 83.5% and 84.1% of pork muscle cuts consumed in the US convey no consumer information on origin despite imposing an upstream recordkeeping burden on producers and processors. Appellate Body noted this fact in support of its finding that the recordkeeping requirement had a detrimental impact on competitive opportunities for imported livestock.

The Appellate Body concluded that the COOL measures are discriminatory as there is no legitimate regulatory purpose for the record-keeping scheme.

Canada has announced that it will now seek roughly USD 3 billion in retaliatory tariffs from the WTO on imports of a wide range of US food products if the US does not repeal the COOL measures or otherwise bring them into compliance with WTO rules.

CBC reporting on Canada’s retaliatory tariffs is available here.

A summary of the WTO Appellate Body Decision is available here.