Bonnans Elodie

Matusakova Andréa

M2 PEA

Introduction

This research dossier, made by Brunhild Le Bailly and Valentine Gerard, deals with food security : the Hormones case between the European Union and the United States.

What is the case ? The European Union does not want to import beef that is produced in a way that is considered unsafe by the authorities and the public. The problem is that as much as 90 percent of U.S. beef is produced with the aid of growth hormones. In 1996, the United States challenged the EU ban on imports of hormone-treated beef under the WTO dispute-settlement mechanism. One year later, the WTO ruled that the EU ban violates the WTO Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) and authorized the United States to impose 100 percent duties on a variety of European products.

The Europeans have explained their refusal by saying that the health and safety of consumers should be the prime consideration. The Americans allege that the Europeans are really just trying to protect European beef producers.

The Hormones beef case shows the rift between the European Union and the United States in dealing with trade issues according to differing conceptions. This is the whole issue of the case, hitting the nerve on cultural divergences, leading to opposite political choices and so entering into conflict with world trade laws.

Complete inventory

The authors decided to develop a specific problem - the hormones beef case- in order to understand European foreign trade relations in general.

- Form

This research dossier consists of twelve texts that come from various sources. There is a link to every text, so that the reader can find it. Unfortunately not all of these links work correctly. The authors also describe the source of the text and make a little judgment about the reliability of the source. The source analysis is followed by a brief summary in English and in French. Then we can read the whole of the text and the commentaries of authors that follow.

This schema is respected in all of the twelve texts, which makes the reading easier.

The form is quite sober and the presentation lacks some imagination. The research dossier is not very functional either. For instance, we can not gain access to a text chosen by simply clicking on it, we have to go through all the preceding texts.

In general the form of this Research dossier is correct, even if a little bit more imagination would be welcome.

- Contents

- Quantity

This research dossier is a serious work which is made up of fifteen pages without the documents.

For each page, the authors introduce the sources and the subject of the part. They give a summary written both in French and in English. Finally, a commentary closes the presentation of each document . Many texts are translated into French.

- Diversity

The sources are quite numerous, ranging from the American point of view to those of Europe : press articles, a text from the organization «Friends of the world’, speeches, and web documents from EUROPA, the portal site of the EU.

The sources are also different in another way, because the reader can have the legal, political, and scientific positions.

Critical analysis

- Form

- Positive points

The research dossier is homogeneous, clear and well structured. The first page enables us to have an overview of the entire structure of this dossier at first sight.

The sources analysis and summaries are faithful to the texts. They are also presented in accordance with the instructions. Finally, we have really appreciated that a complete glossary is available at the end of the dossier with some external links to examine the question in detail.

- Negative points

With regards to the instructions given to build a research dossier, each element is present, but it would be more relevant to put their commentaries before the text and not at the end of the document presentation. We also observe that the summaries in French are longer than the English ones and sometimes really different.

Moreover, some short documents seem to repeat the same information or the same analysis, and so become redundant or irrelevant.

Some word-processing problems exist: it would be practical to insert the page numbers, some web links do not work, and there are some typing errors.

- Contents

- Positive points

While reading this research dossier one is positively surprised by the diversity of sources the authors used. There are newspaper articles, official documents of the EU Commission, a speech by David Byrne, the EU Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection, BBC documents, academic documents and stakeholder comments as well.

Throughout the whole research dossier and also at the end very handy glossaries, since we are dealing with such a technical issue, are to be found.

At the end of every text, the authors propose a commentary of the text which is quite long and includes their personal opinion.

To include the speech by David Byrne, the EU Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection, was a good idea, because it shows a rather diplomatic and psychological side of the issue.

- Negative points

We regret the lack of photos or graphics, which would make the dossier more interesting. So this research dossier is too sober, not really lively or attractive. The inclusion of the texts into the dossier makes the presentation a little bit too heavy.

Even if the diversity of the sources was respected, we think the EUROPA web site, which is the official portal of the EU Commission, was sollicited much more than other European web sites, the use of which might have been more impartial.

And finally, the authors merely exhibit facts, but do not propose any solution to the problem. After all we are supposed to be future decision-makers and finding solutions will be our livelihood. J

Final verdict

Generally, this research dossier is very well done, clear and interesting. The authors were well informed and master the issue well.