The world according to Monsanto : pollution, corruption, and

how multinational corporations control food 315was within its rights, Monsanto proudly asserted in June 1990: “Once created,the first task of the IPC was to repeat the missionary work we did inthe U.S. in the early days, this time with the industrial associations of Europeand Japan, to convince them that a code was possible. . . . It was not aneasy task but our Trilateral Group was able to distill from the laws of themore advanced countries the fundamental principles for protecting all formsof intellectual property. Besides selling our concepts at home, we went toGeneva where [we] presented [our] document to the staff of the GATT Secretariat.We also took the opportunity to present it to the Geneva-based representativesof a large number of countries. What I have described to you isabsolutely unprecedented in GATT. Industry has defined a major problemfor international trade. It crafted a solution, reduced it to a concrete proposal,and sold it to our own and other governments. The industries andtraders of world commerce have played simultaneously the role of the patients,the diagnosticians, and the prescribing physicians.” 10Despite this masterfully conducted collective lobbying, among the manysectors covered by the TRIPS agreement (copyright, trademarks, label oforigin, industrial designs and models, and confidential information, includingtrade secrets), the sector opportunely suggested by Monsanto is the onethat has stymied the implacable machine of the WTO since 1995. The controversyswirls around Article 27, paragraph 3(b), relating to “patentable subjectmatter.” The official text provides: “Members may . . . exclude frompatentability plants and animals other than micro-organisms, and essentiallybiological processes for the production of plants or animals other than nonbiologicaland microbiological processes. However, Members shall providefor the protection of plant varieties either by patents or by an effective suigeneris system or by any combination thereof. The provisions of this subparagraphshall be reviewed four years after the date of entry into force ofthe WTO Agreement.”The language of this article is so abstruse that it was partially responsiblefor the paralysis of the third ministerial conference of the WTO, held inSeattle in December 1999. After reading and rereading it, one can figure outthat animals and plants but not microorganisms may be excluded from thepatent system. But it also stipulates that “plant varieties” shall be protected“either by patents or by an effective sui generis system.” This apparent contradictionis in fact intended directly for transgenic seeds: they may now,backed by sanctions, be “protected” (that is, manufacturers can collect roy-