Crops obtained by plant breeding technique mutagenesis should fall under laws restricting the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), Europe’s highest court said on Wednesday, in a victory for environmental campaigners.

 

The biotech industry had argued that much of mutagenesis, or gene editing, is effectively little different to the mutagenesis that occurs naturally or is induced by radiation - a standard plant breeding method since the 1950s, but the court disagreed.

 

“Organisms obtained by mutagenesis are GMOs and are, in principle, subject to the obligations laid down by the GMO Directive,” the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) said in a statement.

 

“The Court of Justice takes the view, first of all, that organisms obtained by mutagenesis are GMOs within the meaning of the GMO Directive, in so far as the techniques and methods of mutagenesis alter the genetic material of an organism in a way that does not occur naturally,” it added.

 

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