The world according to Monsanto : pollution, corruption, and

68 the world according to monsantoMarch 2005 by Judge Jack B. Weinstein, the same judge who had presidedover the 1983 settlement, on the grounds that the military use of herbicideswas not prohibited by any international law and could therefore not be considereda war crime. Citing a 1925 treaty that banned the wartime use of“gases deployed for their asphyxiating or toxic effects on man,” the eightyyear-oldjudge found that this treaty did not concern “herbicides designed toaffect plants that may have unintended side-effects on people. If supplyingcontaminated herbicide had been a war crime the chemical companiescould have refused to supply it. We are a nation of free men and women,”Judge Weinstein wrote, “habituated to standing up to government when itexceeds its authority.” 44The language must have delighted Monsanto, which, for its part, hadnever varied its defense. “We are sympathetic with people who believe theyhave been injured and understand their concern to find the cause,” declaredJill Montgomery, a Monsanto spokesperson, in 2004, “but reliable scientificevidence indicates that Agent Orange is not the cause of serious long-termhealth effects.” 45Never-ending denial—which is also a characteristic of the company’s currentposition on Roundup, the herbicide it introduced on the market whenin the mid-1970s 2,4,5,-T was finally banned in the United States and subsequentlyin the rest of the world.