Miranda Geelhoed on Reform of the EU's GMO Regime

Network member Kenneth Armstrong (Cambridge) has drawn our attention to a recent piece by Miranda Geelhoed (Edinburgh) in the Cambridge Yearbook of European Legal Studies.  Entitled "Divided in Diversity: Reforming the EU's GMO Regime," it examines one purported solution to the difficulties of GMO decision-making -- Article 26b of Directive 2001/18/EC -- and finds that it fails to adequately account for scientific disagreement.

The abstract is below; the full text is available in the Cambridge Yearbook of European Legal Studies.  Information about the current issue can be found here.  The form to recommend an institutional subscription to the Yearbook can be found here. 

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This article analyses the recent reform to the EU’s genetically modified organisms (GMO) regime which allows Member States to restrict the cultivation of GMO on their territory for reasons that do not relate to issues of health and safety or the environment. By allowing for national differentiation – although on legally questionable grounds – new Article 26b of Directive 2001/18/EC has been presented as a solution to overcome the impasse in GMO decision-making. However, this article finds that the reform fails to provide a solution for the EU regime’s most pressing problem, namely its disregard for scientific uncertainty and disagreement.