Peter said:

> But what if the respective country wishes to ban general commerce of bee stocks etc. from
> US (and anywhere else). as a hygiene measure - then wishes to import material for
> research/development purposes

Please understand that any use of the first person form of address ("you") is simply to keep from
getting bogged down in 2nd and 3rd-person wording.  Nothing against Peter, or France.
(I often confuse "3rd Person Plural" with "1st Person Rural", anyway... je suis, tu est, il est, eh?)

So, let me see if I have this straight...

a)  You say you want the latest queens and germplasm from the R&D labs.

b)  Somehow, you CAN satisfy yourself that you are not importing diseases and
     pests with those R&D shipments

c)  But you can't (or won't) use the same protocol(s) for general commerce.

Why does this strike me as somehow inconsistent with the stated rationale for your ban?
Perhaps because it clearly is.  :)

> you are proposing that due to the imposition of a "partial ban"
> on US material, the response is to be one of a total embargo
> (bee material) towards that country.

Isn't the sudden invention of the term "partial ban" nothing more than an attempt to
gloss over the massive self-serving inconsistency I just pointed out?

And isn't it very unfair to characterize strict US compliance with both the letter and the spirit
of the total ban as "a total embargo"?  How can it be an "embargo"?
Just who's ban is it, anyway?

> It is a form of economic blackmail!

So complying with the clear intent of your ban is not only an "embargo", but is also "blackmail"?
Well, who banned what, anyway?
No one is asking anyone to buy anything.
No one is asking anyone to pay anyone anything.
Anyone who wants to modify their total ban is free to do so, but is expected to do so
in a consistent manner, since to do otherwise would be to violate international (WTO) treaties.

But until bans are lifted or modified, I'm afraid that WTO rules do not allow "exceptions" or
"special cases".  One either allows imports, or one does not, due to valid biosecurity concerns.

> unless you are totally committed to isolating US bee stocks from external diseases and infections.
> And if the latter is the case - then why not go for a total ban on all imports/ exports.

The US imposed strict quarantines (but never a total ban) for decades, but it is clear that the WTO
treaties do not allow such things.  So, we need a port-of-entry testing protocol that makes sense for
bees and bee-related items.  Negotiate one, and everyone wins.  Fail to negotiate one, and you loose
out, while everyone else enjoys "free trade".

One of the (few) advantages of "free trade" is that R&D transfers require less paperwork.

> I tend towards the gray solution - tight import/export controls, with lea way for specialist
> material to be freely traded.

The problem is that WTO SPS guidelines make no exceptions for "specialist material".

The USDA APHIS proposal for bee imports into the US, (the full text of which can be read at
http://www.beeculture.com/imports) was an honest attempt to follow WTO SPS rules, and it
defines the "rules" for gremplasm and experimental queens as no different from commercial
production queens.  Since so much effort by so many very smart people went into these
documents, I can only conclude that the best and brightest have slogged through all the
relevant WTO rules, and found that the rules say that "a bee is a bee is a bee", and
surprisingly, that "germplasm" is also "a bee" of sorts.

So, it appears that one either can or cannot export bees to a country, and ignoring the
rules in the case of  "specialist material" would be grounds for suits from commercial
entities who feel that they were unfairly excluded from the opportunity to trade.

But I don't want anyone to think that I would ever advocate any restriction on the free flow
of scientific knowledge.  I'm only talking about tangible goods that are subject to WTO rules,
like bees, queens, germplasm, and so on.

                        jim

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