She stressed consideration of socio-economic impacts in decision making. She warned against subordination to World Trade Organization rules and opposed exclusion of transgenic crops from the protocol. We want a Protocol that contributes to the reduction of environmental risks by ensuring a just repartition of responsibilities and a good co-operation between exporters, importers and competent authorities in exporting and importing countries. Notable among these is the USA, the world's largest producer of GMO crops such as corn and soybeans, which has not signed the biodiversity convention. U.S. companies make about 80 percent of the bioengineered products available globally today.
Delegates consider documents in the hallway outside the plenary auditorium.
GMO crop producers want to place the burden of regulation of GMOs, as set out by the protocol, onto importing countries rather than exporters. They argue that genetic engineering techniques are no different than plant hybridization techniques farmers have practiced for centuries. The U.S. position is that unfamiliarity and misconceptions about biotechnology lead negotiators from some nations to favor rigid requirements for international trade in these products. Developing countries fear that importing GMO crops could threaten traditional farming methods and endanger biodiversity. According to one observer, many African and Asian countries are determined not to sign the protocol unless their demands for a strict liability mechanism and the right to refuse to import GMOs is granted.