Locked-In Scientific Evidence: The WTO EC-Biotech Dispute

Abstract:     
The parsing of the WTO EC-Biotech is intended to raise substantive issues on the interface between science and law to the extent that the former is brought as legal evidence before courts. The paper contends that the Panel maintains a form of substantial and procedural transitivity between the ability to perform risk assessment and the sufficiency of scientific evidence to legitimate measures of protection, by that preventing States from legitimately undertaking precautionary measures in the absence of scientific evidence. This said, the paper will propose a new way to intend and demonstrate scientific uncertainty in WTO trade disputes

Number of Pages in PDF File: 21

Keywords: Scientific Evidence, Scientific Uncertainty, Burden of Proof, EC-Biotech

working papers series