Source: Mexico Daily News | By MND Staff | July 4, 2024
In what is being called a significant victory for Mexico, Monsanto has withdrawn its legal challenge against the 2020 presidential decree aimed at banning glyphosate and genetically modified (GM) corn for human consumption.
The National Council of Humanities, Sciences and Technologies (Conahcyt) heralded the decision as “a triumph for life, health and food sovereignty.”
Monsanto’s subsidiaries, Semillas y Agroproductos Monsanto and Monsanto Comercial, ratified their withdrawal on June 25.
Monsanto produces the herbicide Roundup, one of several glyphosate-based products that are used in the cultivation of genetically modified organisms (GMO) such as Roundup Ready corn, cotton and soybeans. A common genetic modification makes crops resistant to glyphosate, allowing farmers to apply large amounts of the weed-killer to GMO crops.
The legal battle was initiated in response to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s 2020 decree to ban the widely used but controversial herbicide, which the World Health Organization (WHO) has classified as a “probable carcinogen,” though its safety remains a subject of debate.
The battle included over 30 amparo (judicial protective order) suits aiming to declare the decree unconstitutional. In July 2022, for example, Bayer, which acquired Monsanto six years ago, obtained a court order against the application of the decree.
However, the majority of the cases concluded with rulings unfavorable to the corporations involved.
Conahcyt provided scientific and legal defenses, presenting more than 250 pieces of evidence to support the decree.
Judge Francisco Rebolledo Peña’s July 2022 ruling in favor of Monsanto was appealed by the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat), the Federal Commission for Protection against Sanitary Risks (Cofepris) and Conahcyt.
Citing human rights and environmental safety concerns, the appeal eventually led to Mexico’s Fourth Collegiate Court on Administrative Matters rejecting Monsanto’s arguments. Earlier this year, that same body slapped down an amparo brought by Walmart Mexico against the nation’s updated tobacco control law, which added promotional and advertising bans to the nationwide ban against smoking in public areas.
Originally published in Mexico News Daily, please click here to read more.