(ENN) -- Both sides were claiming victory Monday after a World Trade Organization appellate panel ruling in a dispute between the United States and four Asian countries over shrimp imports and endangered sea turtles.

While the trade court ruled that countries do have a right to restrict access to their markets based on environmental protection concerns, it also said that U.S. implementation of its law restricting shrimp imports was flawed. Monday's ruling authorizes the imposition of trade sanctions by the four countries against the United States.

Environmentalists don't see the decision as a win. Scientists estimate that as many as 150,000 sea turtles drown in shrimp nets each year.

In many parts of the world, sea turtles and shrimp inhabit the same waters. In pursuit of shrimp, trawlers drag their nets along the bottom of the oceans for hours at a time and sweep up virtually all marine life in their path. When the air-breathing sea turtles become entangled in shrimp nets, they cannot reach the surface and often drown.

To address this problem, the U.S. in 1989 required its shrimpers to use turtle protection devices in their shrimping nets. Turtle excluder devices -- known as TEDs -- are trap doors that allow sea turtles to escape the nets while retaining nearly all the shrimp. They can be fitted to shrimp nets for between $50 and $400 each, and have been proven extremely effective in protecting sea turtles.

In addition to requiring its shrimpers to use the TEDs, the U.S. also banned shrimp imports from non-TED using sources, both to keep its shrimpers competitive and to encourage other countries to adapt the TED requirement.

The U.S. eventually wound up banning shrimp from India, Malaysia, Pakistan and Thailand. The four countries filed a challenge against the U.S. claiming that the import restrictions on shrimp were illegal under international trade rules intended to reduce barriers to trade.

Experts from the environmental and scientific communities denounced the decision made by the Geneva-based panel.

"Shrimping and other human activities have left sea turtles on the very brink of extinction," said John McCosker, chair of Aquatic Biology at the California Academy of Science. "Each species of sea turtle protected under U.S. law faces a very high risk of extinction in the wild in the near future. The WTO decision will speed up that decline."

"Studies have shown that using TEDs reduces sea turtle mortality from shrimp fishing by as much as 97 percent," said Todd Steiner, director of the Sea Turtle Restoration Project at Earth Island Institute. "No other means of protecting sea turtles even comes close to being as effective as the turtle excluder device. The misguided WTO decision flies in the face of common-sense environmental protection."

The rules of the World Trade Organization are intended to remove restrictions on trade. The challenging countries argued that the U.S. sea turtle law discriminates against countries that do not require the use of TEDs and therefore violates the rule that restrictions on trade must not discriminate between products from different countries.

"Today's decision by the WTO may permanently undermine the ability of Americans to protect endangered species," said Martin Wagner, an attorney for Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund. "It is clear that environmentalists were right about the dangers of the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) treaty. This decision highlights and strengthens the ability of international trade bureaucrats to overturn measures a country might take to protect endangered species, clean air, or even worker safety standards. Our safety and sovereignty are threatened in the name of free trade."

The United States must now decide whether to follow the dictates of the World Trade Organization and allow non-TED shrimp, or whether to uphold the shrimp ban law, which is still a subject of litigation in U.S. domestic courts.

For more information, contact Brian Smith, Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, (415)627-6700.

Copyright 1998, Environmental News Network, All Rights Reserved

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Rules finalized to save endangered sea turtles
Seafood industry joins U.S. in appealing shrimp embargo
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