Contested GMOs - How Questions of Global Justice and Basic Structures Matter in the Debate on GM Plants

Since GMOs contribute to the distribution of benefits and burdens globally, they give rise to questions of justice, not only in regard to individuals, i.e. consumers and farmers, but also in regard to nation-states and regions. Hence GMOs are an example of global interdependency – environmentally and economically. For instance, it has been claimed that the EU should not prohibit plant GMOs, since this would prevent poor developing countries from exporting seed to the EU. However, counterarguments say that plant GMOs will lead poor countries’ farmers to be subjugated to monopolistic seed companies. The basic disagreement is therefore not only about (scientific) facts of potential risks but also about values. Within recent theory of international justice, cosmopolitans have challenged nationalists as well as Rawlsians adhering to a ‘law of peoples’ conception. The disagreement concerns whether social justice has a purview beyond the nation-state. According to Rawlsian ideal-theory, the purview of social justice is the basic structure of a nation-state, i.e. the constitutional essentials and the regulation of markets. However, Rawls also admits that international society may show some resemblance to a basic structure. This article will investigate how GMOs give rise to international institutions on a par with an international basic structure, i.e. trade agreements, bio-ethical declarations, standards of approvals etc., and how this basic structure may be the subject of an assessment by the standards of justice. The point is that GMOs by themselves cannot be said to be just or unjust, only the institutional set-up regulating GMOs may be so.