Agricultural biotechnology is one of the most promising techniques of modern science. By adding nutrients to key crops such as rice, biotech can improve the health of millions of people. By building protection against insect predators into the crops themselves, it can limit the need for pesticides. By enhancing yields, it can reduce both hunger and the amount of land needed for farming, which leaves more available for forests, species preservation, and other environmental goals.Biotech also offers major safety gains. The techniques themselves ?such as gene splicing?present no inherent risk, and individual products are already regulated by multiple governmental agencies.Nonetheless, biotech has foes. Some are motivated by fear of the unknown, which, for far too many people, includes all of science.  Some want to suppress economic competition from new crops. Whatever their reasons, the foes are mounting a very serious campaign against agricultural biotechnology.In January 2000, in Montreal, the friends and foes of biotech met to work out rules for international trade in commodities produced by these means. The resulting Protocol was hailed in the press with the new buzz word, 'win-win.' However, as this issue of BRIEFLY . . . discusses, the pact contains a disturbing number of possible checks on the use of agricultural biotech, and it may turn out that the 'win' was mostly for the opponents.The author of this analysis is Frances B. Smith, Executive Director of Consumer Alert <www.consumeralert.org> and of a new organization, International Consumers for Civil Society <www.icfcs.org>.  ICCS was founded to provide a counterbalance to the current flood of private entities which call themselves 'NGOs' (for 'nongovernmental organizations') but which seem to devote themselves mostly to promoting additional power for international regulatory bodies, at the expense of the free market, the international business community, the private sector in general, and the true interests of the world's consumers.Ms. Smith follows the biotech issue closely, and was in Montreal throughout the negotiations.This monograph, like all publications of the National Legal Center, is presented as an educational public service to encourage greater understanding of a legal and public policy issue. It has no political purpose, and is designed only to enlighten its readers by giving them access to the thought, experience, and knowledge of others. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the officers or directors of the National Legal Center.