Posted January 27, 2014
The World Trade Organization (WTO) has announced that a
public hearing of the U.S. Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) rule is set for
February 18-19 in Geneva, according to an article by Meat & Poultry
available here.
Canada asked the WTO to establish a compliance panel to
review the COOL regulations in August.
The U.S. lost an appeal brought by Canada and Mexico in
2012, when the WTO Appellate Body found that COOL regulations violated trade
agreements by giving less favorable treatment to Canadian cattle and hogs. The rule was, then, revised.
The COOL final rule, available here,
became effective on May 23, 2013 and modified certain provisions of the COOL
regulations after the World Trade Organization (WTO) found that aspects of the
regulations violated U.S. trade obligations.
The final rule requires labels on certain cuts of meat, to provide
information on where it was born, raised, and slaughtered.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit recently
heard oral arguments on a case involving the COOL rule, Meat Institute, et al. v. U.S. Department of Agriculture.
For additional information on the lawsuit and WTO
ruling, recent posts from this blog are available here
and here. For more information on COOL, please visit
the National Agricultural Law Center’s website here.
