Its current global use in estimated to be 35 million litres - making it to be among the top five generic, off patent agricultural insecticides in the world. It is used in such agriculturally important countries as USA, Argentina, Australia, Japan, Brazil, South Africa, Canada, China, India, Ghana, Mexico, Pakistan, Israel, Nigeria, Sudan etc. It must me noted that these countries account for more than 50% of world's area under agriculture.

Global trade in chemicals is substantially higher than global trade in agricultural products.

Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) involving chemicals such as Stockholm Convention (SC) and Rotterdam Convention (RC) emerge as an effective trade restrictive tool in the hands of EU to curb or eliminate use of pesticides that pose threat to its global trade in pesticides.

EU is the largest producer/exporter of pesticides in the world. EU has 600 companies employing as much as 27000 people manufacturing pesticides worth 9.9 EUR billion- the largest in the world(Source: Eurostat). Europe has a significant share of 60% in world's pesticides export (Source: 2006 data from FAO).

Even as WTO is seized of minimizing and/or eliminating trade restricting effects of existing non tariff barriers (NTBs) in international merchandise trade, MEAs such as Stockholm Convention and Rotterdam Convention are creating new NTBs..! The EU carefully selects "target chemicals" for restrictions/elimination through MEAs. The criteria stealthily applied by EU seem to include:

Nearly all chemicals captured so far in Rotterdam Convention and Stockholm Convention were proposed by the EU. As USA is not a Party to these Conventions, EU's writ runs exclusively and remains almost unchallenged. The EU is aware of its own supremacy in scientific publications and data generation and use these to aggressively mow down dissenting voices during deliberations. Besides, EU facilitates proxy attacks and aids scurrilous campaigns through environmental activists( funded by EU) within and outside these Conventions.

EU's hegemony in these crucial chemical Conventions is highly detrimental to countries outside the EU- especially to such countries as China and India that have sizeable share in chemicals production and exports.

Endosulfan is EU's latest target for restriction & elimination.

The happening in Stockholm Convention involving Endosulfan so far demonstrates that the decision making is neither scientific nor transparent. Brazen procedural abuse is most disturbing. For example, at the last review meeting (POPRC-4) EU's huge dossier on Endosulfan was reviewed by an EU member country itself (self review?) and held to be valid in less than 10 minutes. Protests of procedural abuse and questions of legal validity by a few countries were in vain.

At the next Conference of Parties (COP4), countries that are interested in saving these Conventions from being misused by EU, need to question and review EU dictated decisions at the POPRC 4. And as a safeguard against misuse by a dominant group (EU), WTO pre eminence principle must be expressly incorporated in all chemical related MEAs.