Strasbourg - The environmental activists and farmers who have initiated a court action in the US against the world's largest developers of GM foods, Monsanto, are arranging for similar actions in other jurisdictions, it has emerged, Kevin O'Sullivan writes.
They have filed a class action lawsuit in US District Court in Washington, claiming insufficient testing of GM foods was carried out before they were made widely available.
Monsanto, it is claimed, defrauded farmers when it told them the seeds were safe and that the public would accept GM crops, because according to the plaintiffs the company should have known no nation's standards of testing are adequate to guarantee such safety.
The court filing "refocuses the discussion" of genetic modification, said Mr Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Foundation on Economic Trends.