Monsanto Wins as Supreme Court Backs Alfalfa Seed Planting
June 22nd, 2010Via: Bloomberg:
The U.S. Supreme Court, ruling in favor of Monsanto Co., overturned a judge’s ban on the planting of alfalfa seeds engineered to be resistant to the company’s Roundup herbicide.
The 7-1 ruling shifts the focus of the environmental dispute to the Agriculture Department, which under today’s ruling now can consider allowing limited planting. That would be an interim measure while the USDA finishes an environmental impact statement that ultimately might clear the way for unrestricted planting.
The justices said a federal judge in San Francisco went too far when he placed a nationwide ban on so-called Roundup-ready alfalfa seeds because of the possibility they would contaminate other plants.
“An injunction is a drastic and extraordinary remedy, which should not be granted as a matter of course,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority. Justice John Paul Stevens was the lone dissenter.
Today’s decision may affect a similar fight being waged over Monsanto’s Roundup-tolerant sugar beet seeds.
Alfalfa, the fourth-most-planted U.S. crop behind corn, soybeans and wheat, is worth $9 billion a year, with annual seed sales valued at $63 million, according to a USDA study. Dairy cows are the primary consumers of alfalfa hay.
The trial judge who blocked all planting was U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, brother of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. As is his custom in such cases, Stephen Breyer didn’t take part in today’s ruling.
Institutionalized Justice = the people delegating their responsibility to deal with crime.
It purposes to educate the people through the use of rules. In fact, it doesn’t necessarily want them to understand what justifies any of those rules, but asks for compliance nonetheless.
It’s believed that a non-institutionalized Justice would eventually give up to widespread erratic violences resulting in consanguineous jurys prone to regular lynching. However, I suspect that our time’s Justice is bound to provide similar effects : how a system whose fundations are ignorance and repression could not ?
Next : can anarchistic Justice be fair ? For those of you who can’t wait, the answer will be hell yeah.
Somebody, bring me a bucket (or barf bag).