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Brazilian efforts to regulate remoulded and retreaded tires on the basis of human health and environmental considerations have been challenged by both the European Community and Uruguay in WTO and MERCOSUR dispute settlement for a respectively. Such cases are part of and belong to the evolving history of so-called "trade and environment" disputes that have appeared over the past 20 years. Since the infamous and divisive "Tuna-Dolphin" dispute litigated at the GA TT in 1991, European and international attention has focused increasingly on this apparently divisive field of law. Rather encouragingly, the more recent case law is moving to were a more balanced and proportionate approach to the trade- environment interface. Ironically, in the wake of the EU-Brazil WTO retreaded tyre dispute, the German nongovernmental organization Form for Environment and Development has sought to encourage EU Trade Commissioner Mandelson to withdraw his appeal of the WTO decision stating that "(A)n appeal of the panel report would be an assault on the health needs of the poor and the environment" and noting that "the European Community has defended several European environmental and health policies at the WTO (asbestos, GMO imports, hormones in beef) and will likely have to defend others in the future. It does not make sense to challenge a decision that will be useful for arguing pending and future environment and health cases at the WTO." This article examines the WTO and MERCOSUR dispute settlement challenges and the interaction between the two dispute settlement bodies prior to providing some concluding analysis on balancing health and environment and trade law considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Up to 80% of BRCA1 and BRCA2 genetic variants remain of uncertain clinical significance (VUSs). Only variants classified as pathogenic or likely pathogenic can guide breast and ovarian cancer prevention measures and treatment by PARP inhibitors. We report the first results of the ongoing French national COVAR (cosegregation variant) study, the aim of which is to classify BRCA1/2 VUSs. The classification method was a multifactorial model combining different associations between VUSs and cancer, including cosegregation data. At this time, among the 653 variants selected, 101 (15%) distinct variants shared by 1,624 families were classified as pathogenic/likely pathogenic or benign/likely benign by the COVAR study. Sixty-six of the 101 (65%) variants classified by COVAR would have remained VUSs without cosegregation data. Of note, among the 34 variants classified as pathogenic by COVAR, 16 remained VUSs or likely pathogenic when following the ACMG/AMP variant classification guidelines. Although the initiation and organization of cosegregation analyses require a considerable effort, the growing number of available genetic tests results in an increasing number of families sharing a particular variant, and thereby increases the power of such analyses. Here we demonstrate that variant cosegregation analyses are a powerful tool for the classification of variants in the BRCA1/2 breast-ovarian cancer predisposition genes., Competing Interests: Declaration of interests D.S.-L. and the Institut Curie have received honoraria for her participation in education meetings organized by AstraZeneca or Tesaro. The remaining authors declare no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 American Society of Human Genetics. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)