Transnational corporate interests and global environmental governance: negotiating rules for agricultural biotechnology and chemicals

This essay examines the role of the agricultural input industry in the negotiation of two environmental treaties: the Cartegena Protocol on Biosafety and the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. It seeks to explain why industry players were willing to accept a phase-out of POPs chemicals but were reluctant to accept strict regulation of the trade in genetically modified organisms. This comparison is an important one to consider, as the line that once divided the agricultural chemicals and agricultural biotechnology industries has become more blurred, such that many of the same firms now are involved in both pesticide production and agricultural biotechnology. The essay argues that in order to fully understand industry positions on these two treaties, economic factors facing these industries must be examined. The shifting profitability of the pesticides and seeds industries over the past two decades goes a long way to explaining not only the positions industry players took in these two environmental treaty negotiations, but also the merger of the two sectors in recent years.