Seven International Trade in Pesticides
Some pesticides are just too dangerous to be used safely under the conditions
of use in many developing countries.
—Professor Hermann Waibel^1Background
The expansion of free trade among nations has focused attention on issues related to
the export and import of pesticides, especially when the pesticide in question is not
registered for use within the United States. The export and import of pesticides is
addressed in Section 17 of FIFRA, and labels of pesticide products exported but not
registered for use within the United States must include the statement ‘‘Not Regis-
tered for Use in the United States of America.’’ When food products that have been
treated with such exported products are imported back into the United States, the
cycle is often termed the ‘‘circle of poison.’’ In practice, the frequency of imported
food products that have been treated in conflict with EPA registrations or FDA toler-
ances is relatively low. The major problem is differences in standards established by
different countries, since the United States has one system of standards, while most
other countries follow an international standard established by the Codex Alimentar-
ius Commission (a joint commission under the Food Agriculture Organization
[FAO] and World Health Organization [WHO], both agencies of the United
Nations). Thus, the primary challenge is coordinating standards applicable to pesti-
cide residues allowed in treated food products.
The fact of the matter is that the United States has shown minimal interest in
advancing efforts to mitigate the harm caused by pesticides traded in the global mar-
ketplace. In 1993, the EPA issued the U.S. pesticide export policy (hereafter referred
to as the 1993 policy), which is essentially a plan of noninterference: it allows U.S.
pesticide producers to sell their products abroad with few procedural restrictions.
Presently, the 1993 policy gives special treatment to ‘‘unregistered pesticides.’’ This