Document Type

Article

Disciplines

International Law

Abstract

Glyphosate, the active herbicide in Bayer Monsanto's (Monsanto) widely utilized weedkiller, Roundup, has been applied to conventional crops in the United States (U.S.) since the early 1970s.1 Despite being the predominant herbicide choice in American agriculture, 2 glyphosate has emerged as a controversial substance due to its suspected carcinogenic potential in humans. Recently, in the case of Johnson v. Monsanto Co.,3 a San Francisco jury decided that Plaintiff Dewayne Johnson's non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a type of lymphatic cancer, was the result of Johnson's perennial exposure to glyphosate during his former tenure as a school groundskeeper. Since the Johnson verdict, American courts have been inundated with thousands of related claims by domestic farmers and groundskeepers who similarly allege that glyphosate is to blame for their respective cancers. Nonetheless, Monsanto remains steadfastly committed to its position that glyphosate is safe, and it argues that the link between cancer and glyphosate is not only speculative, but scientifically unproven.4 The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which is tasked with the registration of pesticides for approved uses,5 agrees with Monsanto that glyphosate poses no health risk to humans.6 Likewise, the European Union (EU) has decided that glyphosate is harmless,7 although certain Member States have independently held otherwise.

This note argues that the potential carcinogenic danger posed by glyphosate is too great to ignore, irrespective of the current safety determinations by Monsanto, the EPA, and the EU. As a result, this note proposes strategies for the procurement of a ban on glyphosate in both the U.S. and the EU. Part I of this note discusses the scientific uncertainty surrounding glyphosate, and brings attention to Monsanto's likely interference in the objectivity of epidemiological studies that have been used by the EPA to inform its glyphosate decision-making. Part II examines the current regulatory landscape of glyphosate in the EU, and draws comparisons to federal EPA oversight of glyphosate in the U.S. Collectively, Parts I and II argue that, on a federal level, the U.S. and the EU are unlikely to alter their stances on glyphosate in the near future, thus making a prompt ban on glyphosate improbable. As such, the U.S. and the EU federal governments cannot be relied upon to protect the public from potentially devastating health consequences. In order to oust glyphosate in the U.S. and in the EU, non-federal solutions must take priority.

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