Norway makes WTO complaint against EU seal product ban

(OSLO) - Norway filed an official complaint Thursday at the World Trade Organisation against a European Union ban on imported seal products, saying it violated trade rules.

The non-EU Scandinavian country's complaint came three days after a similar move by Canada.

"In our view, the EU decision is contrary to WTO rules on a number of key points," Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said in a statement.

"We will not let this go uncontested," he added.

The 27 EU states this year adopted a ban on seal products, ruling the goods could not be marketed in the EU nations starting in 2010.

Exceptions were made for products not sold for profit and products coming from the Inuit hunt.

Canada, the world's largest seal product producer with a quota of 338,000 kills per season, officially complained to the WTO on Monday, also saying the ban was a violation of international trade rules.

Norway authorised the killing of 42,000 seals last year, judging that the cull was necessary to help protect fish stocks.

It has insisted that its hunting methods are the most regulated in the world and has proposed that the EU work together with seal-hunting countries to ensure that proper methods are used.

Norwegian seal hunters are only authorised to use rifles and a "hakapik," a kind of pickaxe, in order to "inflict the least amount of suffering as possible on the animals," according to the government.

The ax is used to knock the seals out before they are dismembered. But critics contend that dismembering sometimes occurs when the animals are still conscious.