RESUMO
Despite bans on certain pesticides and their replacement by others considered less hazardous, the widespread use of these substances in agriculture continues to threaten the environment and the health of millions of people. This article discusses the current double standard in the international trade of pesticides and focuses on Brazil, one of the main users of pesticides in the world, analyzing the trends in foreign trade (imports and exports) of selected pesticides as a function of changes in legislation in the United States, the European Union, and Brazil from 1989 to 2006. We applied time line analysis to eight organochlorines already banned in Brazil and conducted a case-by-case qualitative and quantitative analysis of nine other pesticides. The results indicate the existence of double standards, as demonstrated by the continued exports to Brazil of some pesticides banned in the United States and Europe.