THE «BEEF WAR»: A PULSATILE CONFLICT BETWEENWASHINGTON AND BRUSSELS

Kryzhanovskiy Andrey Vladimirovich

An American-European longstanding conflict linked to the ban on import of hormone beef to the European Community (later – European Union) undoubtedly belongs to the most critical trade clashes between Washington and Brussels at the end of the XXth – beginning of the XXIst century. Despite numerous proceedings within the framework of WTO, both sides have failed to elaborate a coherent approach to the problem of hormone use in beef stock farming.Thus the “beef war” is still under way nowadays rotating various levels of intensity. The author makesan attempt to generally research into the anatomy of the given conflict paying special attention to its most significant components – biomedical, economic and international legal. The sense of “beef war” cannotbe reduced to the narrowly-specialized issue covering the damage of hormone beef products to the human health. Sustainability of American-European discordconcerning the application of hormonal growth stimulators touches upon system problems of international economic relations. An example of the “beef war” demonstrates low efficiency of WTO in the process of world trade regulation and epitomizes a tendency to the settlement of trade-economic disputes on a traditional bilateral basis without the assistance of arbitration courts embodied in international organizations.

Keywords:USA, EU, transatlantic relations, American-European trade conflicts, “beef war”, American foreign policy, EU foreign policy.