Trade and the Environment

This chapter provides an overview of a broad range of issues that arise at the interface of trade and the environment. After this introduction, Section II considers trade and environment in the context of the WTO, by examining relevant WTO agreements, recent trade disputes with environmental implications, the WTO’s Committee on Trade and Environment (“CTE”), and relevant mandates resulting from the recent WTO Fourth Ministerial in Doha, Qatar. Section III then seeks to place the traditional issues of trade and environment in the broader context of sustainable development, a concept that connotes a development path that optimizes human activities within economic, social and environmental spheres, and that meets the needs of present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. This is followed in subsequent sections by a thematic discussion of the main trade and environment issues, organized according to three main categories: 1) issues arising from material linkages between trade and other facets of the world we live in (Section IV); 2) legal and policyrelated issues arising between trade and other fields of law and policy (Section V); and 3) organizational issues arising between the WTO and other institutional arrangements (Section VI). Section VII concludes with some thoughts on the future development of international economic law and policy as it applies to the environment and sustainable development. The scope, diversity and complexity of this field prevent a single chapter from covering the subject in detail; this chapter, consequently, is designed to provide a sketch of some of the main issues of trade and environment and to complement the discussion of related issues as they are addressed in other chapters of this work.

The views expressed in this article are strictly personal and do not bind or necessarily reflect the views of their respective organizations. The cut-off date for this article is September 1, 2002. We are grateful to Arthur E. Appleton, James Bacchus, Valerie Hughes, Gabrielle Marceau, and Alice Palmer for their comments, advice and assistance. All errors, or course, remain our own.

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References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Program on Governance for Sustainable Development at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara Matthew Stilwell ( Managing Director and Legal Counsel )
  2. UN Environment Program’s Economics and Trade Branch in Geneva, Switzerland Matthew Stilwell ( Managing Director and Legal Counsel )
  3. World Trade Organization, Switzerland Jan Bohanes ( Legal Affairs Officer )
  1. Matthew Stilwell
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  1. International Trade Law Center, International Law Institute, Washington, D.C. Patrick F. J. Macrory ( Director ) ( Director )
  2. White & Case, Geneva Arthur E. Appleton ( Counsel ) ( Counsel )
  3. SAIS-Bologna, Johns Hopkins University, Bologna Michael G. Plummer ( Professor of International Economics ) ( Professor of International Economics )

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Stilwell, M., Bohanes, J. (2005). Trade and the Environment. In: Macrory, P.F.J., Appleton, A.E., Plummer, M.G. (eds) The World Trade Organization: Legal, Economic and Political Analysis. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-22688-5_58

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