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5 Eur. J. Risk Reg. 187 (2014)
Shrimp Export from Benin vs Food Safety in Europe: Reconcilable Interests?

handle is hein.journals/ejrr2014 and id is 198 raw text is: Shrimp Export from Benin vs Food Safety in Europe: Reconcilable Interests? | 187 Shrimp Export from Benin vs Food Safety in Europe: Reconcilable Interests? Kdvine Kindji and Michael Faure* In order to secure their fishery products market share in the EU, third countries, especially the developing ones, tend to transplant EU requirements into their domestic legal order. In reality, theses transplanted laws do not correspond to measures to reach a level of protec- tion needed by the country of destination. Based upon the case of Benin, this paper intends to show that when these legal transplants are adversely made, they can in some cases have disastrous effects. It can be argued that an unintended result of EU policy was that it con- tributed to the collapse of the shrimp industry in Benin. The paper moreover argues that de- spite the stringency of the EU requirements, the implementation of its control policy might inadequately protect European consumers of shrimp. 1. Introduction The safety of fishery products has drawn much at- tention in the EU regulatory process because they are considered high risk products that must be handled with a great deal of care to protect consumers from potential harm. This imposition by the EU of very strict sanitary and phytosanitary standards has not gone undisputed. Some have argued that applying these strict EU standards also on imports formally serves tools of consumer protection as reiterated in public debates, but de facto often has the hidden pur pose of protectionism'. This resulted over the years in an EU policy strengthening legal standards which could result in trade bans and border rejections for third countries. Compliance with EU norms proves Kdvine Kindji is a PhD researcher at the Maastricht European Institute of Transnational Legal Research (METRO) (the Nether- lands) with a scholarship from Nuffic. Michael Faure is professor of comparative and international environmental law at Maastricht University and professor of comparative private law and econom- ics at Erasmus School of Law (Rotterdam), both in The Nether- lands. 1 This has been the case not only for fishery products, but the suspicions refer more generally to most food of animal origin. See for example Alasdair R. Young and Peter Holmes, Protection or Protectionism? EU Food Safety and the WTO, in What's the Beef? The Contested Governance of European Food Safety, Christopher Ansell and David Vogel eds, (2006) pp 281-306; Kathryn M. Pace, EU Import Notifications as a Protectionist Move: an Exami- nation of the Relation between Tariff and Non-Tariff Barriers in Seafood Trade, MSc thesis (2011), Tsunehiro Otsuki, John S. Wilson and Mirvat Sewadeh, A race to the top? A Case Study of Food Safety Standards and African Exports, World bank. 2 See for example Dianna DaSilva-Glasgow and Mark Bynoe, Strategic Response to Evolving Food Safety Standards: A Case especially difficult for developing countries. In real- ity the levels of protection at both sides may vary sub- stantially because in some developing countries, there is no strong incentive to develop an intricate food safety law to protect the domestic market. In some African countries, economic development may have a higher priority than food safety as a result of which less emphasis is put on promoting strict safe- ty standards. In view of these considerations, two schools of thought have developed in the literature. On the one hand, some authors support the view of 'standards as catalysts for developing countries, hav- ing regard to the fact that compliance may serve for upgrading production systems, thereby enhancing quality and contributing to competitiveness2. For ex- ample, some countries like Bangladesh3 and Sri Lan- Study of Guyana's Fish Export, Estey Center Journal ofInternation- al Law and Trade Policy (2012), Vol 13 No 2, 201-215; Donna Roberts and Laurian Unnevehr, Resolving trade disputes arising from trends in food safety regulation: the role of the multilateral governance framework, World Trade Review (2005) 469497; Luz B. Diaz Rios and Steven Jaffee., Barrier, Catalyst, or Distraction? Standards, Competitiveness, and Africa's Groundnut Exports to Europe, Agriculture and Rural Development Discussion Paper, World Bank (2008) 1-83. 3 In 1997, the EU banned shrimps from Bangladesh for non- compliances with its requirements. Although the shrimp export sector suffered considerable losses as a result of the ban, subse- quent compliance with HACCP principles enabled an increase in exports. As reported by Yunus (2009), From the second year the accrued benefits far outweighed the annual costs of the compliance and hence, justify the annual costs incurred. In the long run HACCP compliance helped Bangladesh export addi- tional US$ 35 million annually. See Yunus, M., EU Ban, HACCP Compliance and Shrimp Exports from Bangladesh. The Bangladesh Development Studies Vol. XXXII, No. 3. (2009) pp41-57 EJRR 2|2014

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