India loses poultry case against United States at WTO

India has lost a poultry case against United States at World Trade Organization (WTO) after WTO’s Dispute Settlement Board (DSB) ruled that India’s ban on import of poultry meat, eggs and live pigs from US is inconsistent with the international norms.
What is this case?

• India had banned imports of various agriculture products including poultry meat and eggs from the US in 2007. These poultry products were banned as a precautionary measure to prevent outbreaks of Avian Influenza and bird flu fears.
• In March 2012, US had dragged India to the WTO for banning these products and had contended India’s import prohibition saying that it was not based on the relevant international standard or on a scientific risk assessment.
• Earlier in October 2014 WTO Appellate Body had ruled in favour of US and clearly mentioned that India’s ban measures are arbitrarily and unjustifiably discrimination on international trade and constitutes a disguised restriction on it.
• India had challenged WTO’s this ruling and had appealed to the Dispute Settlement Board (DSB) of the WTO.

With this WTO ruling, US which is one of the world’s largest exporters of chicken meat will be able to export their poultry products to Indian market without any trade barriers.
This will help US farmers and poultry industry to supply their products to Indian broiler meat consumers which has increased to 3.72 million tonnes in 2014 from 3.45 million tonnes in 2013.

Month: Current Affairs - June, 2015