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On 24 October, Mexico requested WTO dispute settlement consultations with the US on the eligibility criteria for the dolphin-safe logo granted by the Department of Commerce (DoC).
The two countries have a long history of litigation over yellowfin tuna. The crux of the issue is Mexican fishermen’s use of purse seine nets to capture the valuable fish. As dolphins swim above the shoals of tuna, they often get caught in the huge nets and drown. In 1990, the US prohibited the importation of tuna caught with purse seine nets. In a verdict roundly denounced by environmental organisations, the GATT ruled in 1991 that the ban was illegal, but the decision was never formally adopted.
In 1997, the US replaced the ban by the International Dolphin Conservation Programme Act, which allowed pure-seine-captured tuna imports provided that on-ship monitors certify that only a marginal number of dolphins were killed in the fishing operation. However, when the DoC proposed to modify the dolphin-safe label criteria accordingly, US conservation groups launched a series of law suits against the government agency. Those culminated in an April 2007 California appeals court ruling that purse-seine nets did have an adverse effect on dolphin populations, and that tuna caught using that method did not fulfil the criteria for dolphin-safe designation.
Mexico argues that its fishing practices are consistent with an international ag-reement reached under the auspices of the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission of which the US is also a member. According to the Mexican government, the country has lost a third of its tuna fleet due to the ‘unjustified restrictions’ maintained by the US. In its consultation request, Mexico alleged that the US discriminates against its tuna exports since tuna products from other countries are eligible for the logo. Although use of the label is voluntary, tuna marketed without it sells poorly in the US.
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