In June 2000, seven months after non-governmental organisations demanded that the WTO look beyond trade concerns at the doomed Seattle ministerial, a WTO dispute settlement panel (DSP) ruled in favour of public health and against free trade for the first time, in a case involving Canadian asbestos exports. WTO representatives lost no time in announcing that the decision "disproves charges by radical environmental and human rights bodies that the organisation works in favour of big business by giving free trade interests preference over other concerns'.

Canada is the world's largest exporter of chrysotile (white) asbestos