International trade and the environment: theory and policy issues (original) (raw)

Examining the Overlap Between Environmental Protection and International Trade Instruments

Journal of Law, Policy and Globalization, 2021

This paper attempts both a legal and socio-environmental appraisal of the protection of the human environment through International Trade Instruments. This discourse realises that there exists a seeming conflict of activities between the need to protect the human environment and the sustainable propagation of human activities through international trade. The study embarks on a qualitative review of significant cases largely on the economic and environmental policies on trade. It accepts that protectionism as well as liberalism has been explored in times past as wealth-creation mechanisms, as the exploitation of natural resources has been largely effective leading to technological challenges; but there continues to be conflict without battle. The study avers that nature which has been repeatedly seen as a finite resource should not be perpetually explored and exploited, but concrete regulatory mechanisms through national and international instruments to protect the environment and regulate trade with sustainable development should be emplaced. It concludes that even though substantial progress has been made in identifying the circumstances in which international trade and environmental protection can be mutually compatible, but several areas of contention and conflict remain, whilst making recommendations for effectively managing the areas of overlap.

THE ROLE OF TRADE IN ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION

In the recent decades, environmental issues have gained significance on most areas including trade. Many people believed that openness policy of trade harms the environment; however, less widely people recognized the possibility of effect in the opposite direction. In addition to these propositions, I think understanding the role of trade in environmental degradation has two major angles that should be examined. Firstly, as being somewhere between production and consumption, trade is closely related with these processes and therefore when we examine trade in terms of environmental degradation we should also consider production and consumption processes along with trade process. After this, in order to answer kind of questions that whether more trade means more environmental problems or whether trade affects the nature of environment, the process of free trade should be examined itself. On this basis, this article first will review the major hypothesizes ‘race-to-the-bottom’ and ‘gains-from-trade’ and then, will fist have a look at the relationship between production-consumption processes and environmental degradation. Finally we will try to examine the process of free trade itself in terms of environmental issues.

Trade and the environment: a survey of the literature

2003

At best, trade barriers are a second-best means of reducing environmental damage. Any case for more gradual liberalization of trade should be based on estimates of the costs of maintaining barriers versus the benefits of delayed environmental damage. PolicyResab WongPp dissindatehfladngsofwoinpo plOgm and ncouragetheexchangeofideas amongBank staffand allotbsintedin davelopnatinuThsepapm, distdbutedby theRehAdvisoy Staff,canythenamesoftheauthors, rflec only thdrviws.andshouldbesed ndcitedaccording1y.Thefindings,intpreutns, andcw dusidos arethe authos'own.Theysbould nct be attibuted to the WoAd Bak, is Board of Diroo, its maoag=av, or any of its mnber countries

Trade, Environment, and Sustainable Development: A Primer

Hastings International and Comparative Law Review, 1992

1 (unpublished minutes on file with CIEL-US). The GATT Secretariat has, however, denied any linkage between trade and the achievement of sustainable development. See GATT Secretariat, Trade and the Environment 3 (undated advance copy on file with the authors) [hereinafter GATT Secretariat, Trade and the Environment). The GATT Secratariat views trade as a mere "magnifier" of the existing policies. Id. Thus, if a country has sustainable policies in place, trade will promote them. Id. "Alternatively, if such policies are lacking, the country's international trade may contribute to a skewing of the country's development in an environmentally damaging direction, but then so will most of the other economic activities in the country." Id. The Secretariat does not view this "magnifier" effect as a direct causal relationship between trade and the goal of sustainable development. Id.