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Introduction
March 2004 – The Codex Alimentarius Guidelines for Vitamin and Mineral Supplements
are a joint attempt by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
and the World Health Organization (WHO) to formulate one single standard governing the
sale of food supplements that can be applied throughout the global market. Under the
guise of free trade ‘harmonization’ the Guidelines are being drawn up by the Codex
Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU), where vitamins
and minerals are defined as foods. This committee meets in Germany once every year,
usually in November.
Although the Guidelines have gone through several revisions over recent years it is now
becoming increasingly clear that their eventual effect, once completed and implemented,
may be to remove large numbers of the most effective forms of nutrients from the global
market; set restrictive upper limits on the dosages of all permitted nutrients; and prevent
the sale of all supplements for curative, preventative or therapeutic purposes without a
doctor’s prescription. As a result, the Guidelines would continue to ensure that the sale of
curative, preventative and therapeutic products remains the exclusive province of the
pharmaceutical industry.
As this article will show, the Codex Alimentarius Guidelines for Vitamin and Mineral
Supplements are now without question the most serious of all the various threats currently
facing the global natural products industry.
known as “GATT contracting parties”, and upon signing the new WTO agreements (which
include the updated GATT, known as GATT 1994), they officially became known as “WTO
Members”. Built upon some of the ideas and principles that underpin the European Union
(6), the WTO currently has a total membership of 146 countries. (7). In the mid-1990s
Codex Alimentarius signed agreements with the WTO by which Codex creates trade
standards that the WTO uses to resolve international trade disputes. (8), (9), (10).
freely within its territorial jurisdiction, while domestically produced products sold within
its own borders remain unaffected). (24). The ‘free distribution’ option has led many people
to mistakenly believe that Codex does not have the authority to impose anything on a
country in terms of domestically produced products sold into its own internal market.
However, because Codex standards are used by the WTO to resolve international trade
disputes, WTO members can literally have Codex Guidelines and Standards forced upon
them, irrespective of acceptance. Proof of this comes from the Codex Committee on General
Principles, who have stated the following:
The Committee recognized that the current procedures had not been used frequently and
recalled that Codex standards were a reference in the framework of the WTO Agreements
irrespective of acceptance. (25).
Furthermore, in response to a request from the 22nd Session of the Codex Alimentarius
Committee for the WTO Committee on Samitary and Phytosanitary Measures (the SPS
Committee) to clarify “how the Committee would differentiate standards, guidelines or
recommendations in relation to the implementation of the SPS Agreement" by WTO
Members, the WTO has informed Codex that the SPS Agreement does not differentiate
between standards and guidelines (26), (20), and that how a Codex text is applied depends
upon its substantive content rather than the category of the text. (20). Clearly then, any
distinction between ‘Standards’ and ‘Guidelines’ by the Codex Alimentarius Committee is
purely arbitrary.
Conclusion
As a result of the SPS Agreement, Codex texts, guidelines and standards are effectively
mandatory for all WTO Members. Also, because the WTO do not distinguish between
guidelines and standards, and the fact that the WTO uses Codex texts to resolve
international trade disputes, a finalised Codex text would have the ability to override the
dietary supplement laws of all countries - including the United States and its hard-fought
victory in passing DSHEA. Moreover, although the Codex Guidelines for Vitamin and
Mineral Food Supplements are currently at step 5 of an 8-step finalisation process, the EU
and the FAO have both recently stated their desire to accelerate the work of Codex such
that the adoption of Codex texts could henceforth be achieved in 5 steps. However, and as
previously stated, in order to achieve an adoption in 5 steps it may not even be necessary to
modify the existing procedures, as these already provide for an accelerated adoption. As a
result of the stranglehold that the EU are beginning to exert upon the Codex Alimentarius
discussions this outcome therefore remains a very real possibility for the next CCNFSDU
meetings in November 2004.
In summary the EU is now the single strongest influence at Codex meetings, and the EU
Food Supplements Directive is essentially the blueprint for the Codex Guidelines for
Vitamin and Mineral Supplements. Unless serious changes are made to the way in which
Codex operates therefore, it would not be unreasonable to expect that other EU health-
related legislation, such as restrictive regulations on nutrition and health claims, will
become the blueprints for still further standards to be enacted on a globally harmonised
basis. In the event of this the planetary effects upon natural health, and by implication
REFERENCES
2. Ibid. p. 6.
3. Ibid. p. 7.
4. Ibid. p. 7.
6. The man who built the WTO: an interview with Peter Sutherland.
13. Ibid.
14. World Trade Organization. The WTO Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and
Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement).
Article 5; paragraph 1.
15. Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses. Agenda for
Twenty-fifth Session, held at "Brückenforum Bonn", Friedrich-Breuer-Strasse 17,
Bonn, Germany, on 3 – 7 November 2003.
16. World Trade Organization. The WTO Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and
Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement).
Article 5; paragraph 3.
25. Report of the Thirteenth Session of the Codex Committee on General Principles,
held in Paris from 7 to 11 September 1998. Item 6.2; paragraph 43. Revision of the
Acceptance Procedure (CX/GP 98/8).
29. http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/pri/en/oj/dat/2002/
l_183/l_18320020712en00510057.pdf
30. Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses. 25th Session.
Bruckenforum, Bonn, Germany 3-7 November 2003. ALINORM04/26.
33. Ibid.
35. http://europa.eu.int/comm/eurostat/Public/
datashop/print-product/EN?catalogue=Eurostat&
product=3-09012004-EN-BP-EN&mode=download
36. http://www.census.gov/main/www/cen2000.html
37. Forty eight countries attended the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for
Special Dietary Uses 25th Session, held at the Bruckenforum, Bonn, Germany, from 3-7
November 2003. ALINORM04/26.
See ftp://ftp.fao.org/codex/alinorm04/al04_26e.pdf
These forty eight countries included three of the new EU countries (Hungary, Poland
and Slovenia). If the other seven new EU countries attend the next meeting in
November 2004 (and assuming that every country that attended last year also attends)
there will be fifty five countries attending in total. A two thirds majority would
therefore consist of thirty seven votes. The EU will have twenty five votes.
39. Ibid. p. 8.
40. Ibid. p. 9.
42. Ibid. Procedures for the Elaboration of Codex Standards and Related Texts. p. 22.
43. http://www.alliance-natural-health.org/
44. http://www.autismfile.com/nutrilink.htm
45. http://www.hfma.co.uk/
46. http://www.nahs.co.uk/