Canadians sued for banning lindane

In November 2001, a major US-based chemical producer filed a US$100 million lawsuit against the Canadian government for banning use of the pesticide lindane on canola crops. 

Crompton Corp is suing Canada under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a trilateral free trade agreement signed in 1992 between Canada, the US and Mexico. Corporations have challenged national environmental and health bans of suspected toxins using NAFTA several times using the agreement’s controversial Chapter 11. The chapter grants private investors and corporations the right to sue NAFTA governments for damages if they feel that their investments have been hurt by national laws or regulations. In the precedent-setting case where the Canadian government was sued for banning the toxic gasoline additive MMT, the government settled the dispute by agreeing to repeal the ban, issue a public apology to the US-based producer Ethyl Corp. and pay the company damages of US$13 million.
    One of PAN International’s Dirty Dozen pesticides, lindane is persistent in the environment, highly toxic, a suspected endocrine disrupter and has been linked to breast cancer (see p7). Documented health effects of exposure to lindane include dizziness, seizures, nervous system damage, immune system damage and birth defects. It has been found in breast milk and blood samples throughout the world, and is the persistent chemical found most often in the arctic environment.

Cited in PANUPS, January 3, 2002. Sources: The Globe and Mail December 10, 2001; Public Citizen "NAFTA Chapter 11 Investor-to-State Cases: Bankrupting Democracy" September 2001, available at http://www.citizen.org/publications/release.cfm?ID=7076; http://www.foei.org/activist_guide/tradeweb/ethyl.htm; PANUPS October 24, 2000; http://www.cromptoncorp.com; Global Pesticide Campaigner, Fall 2000.

[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 55, March 2002, page 21]