Technological change, trade and the environment (original) (raw)
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Since its entry into force in 2003, the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety raises debate and controversy, even among signatory countries. The difficulties of risk assessment on biodiversity and human health, disparities in institutional capacity, uncertainty regarding the definition of liability and redress for the damage caused by the transboundary movement of living modified organisms (LMOs) are the most visible controversies. Two other related issues, but less explicit, are added to this chart: first, the relevance of an agreement combining environmental principles and trade provisions and second, the fact that the agreement may be used as a nontariff barrier or any instrument of anticompetitive behaviour by the non-Parties, producers and exporters of LMOs. After the COP-MOP 5 held in Nagoya in October 2010, especially with the adoption of the Suppelementary Protocol on Liability and Redress, the international governance of biosafety still advance in the direction of a hybrid approach between environmental conservation and trade issues, with more emphasis on the role of the companies, the progressively generalized acceptance of biotechnological risks on biodiversity and the need for intervention measures.
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Chemicals, including polymers, are an integral part of all plastic materials and products. More than 13,000 chemicals are used in plastics, of which >3,200 are classified as hazardous. 1 This means they are officially recognized to be toxic, persistent or have other concerning properties. Yet, only 4% of these chemicals are regulated globally. 2 They can leach into our food, homes, and the environment, and adversely affect human health and the environment. Negative impacts occur across the plastics life cycle, from resource extraction, production and use to the end of life. Thus, plastic and its chemicals contribute to the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution.
The Prospects of an International Treaty on Plastic Pollution
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On 2 March 2022, the United Nations Environment Assembly to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) requested the Executive Director of UNEP to convene an international negotiating committee towards the negotiation of an international legally binding instrument on plastics by 2024. This article examines some of the proposed elements of such an instrument and outlines the next steps that can be expected in the negotiations. It also reflects on the results of the ad hoc open-ended working group to prepare for the work of the intergovernmental negotiating committee to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment, which was convened in Dakar, Senegal, from 30 May to 1 June 2022. Ensuring legal certainty of key features of the new agreement, such as the circular economy and support for developing countries and countries with economies in transition, will be subject to particular scrutiny.
THE TRADE AND ENVIRONMENT DEBATE: THE NORMATIVE AND INSTITUTIONAL INCONGRUITY
Although human activities are in general said to be responsible for environmental problems, trade takes the lion’s share. The ever growing production and consumption of goods and services, the major inputs of which are natural resources, discharge of wastes and dangerous chemicals into the environment, etc. have always been major concerns. The reality has thus provoked the discussion over global concerns regarding trade related environmental issues within the UN as well as in the GATT/WTO regimes. Although national economic self-interest and international relations dominate the trade and environment debate, there are three important convoluted factors that need to be dispelled. First, the GATT/WTO is an exclusively trade organisation that is not necessarily competent to address environmental concerns except that the GATT Art XX addresses the General Exception on human, animal and plant life and health. Second, although trade is the major category of human activity as a source of environmental problems, there are wide range of Multilateral Environmental Agreements (“MEAs”) negotiated and agreed upon outside the purview of trade institutions. And third, many of those MEAs are administered by various secretariats other than the United Nations Environmental Program (“UNEP”) or the GATT/WTO. Many of the environment-related trade disputes are, however, raised under GATT XX and entertained by the dispute settlement bodies of the GATT/ WTO with significant ramifications for concerns of the environment and the normative and institutional frameworks of the UNEP and others in this realm. This shows institutional gaps regarding the issue of trade and environment, and in effect, nations are dealing with the problem by local legislation with extra-jurisdictional trade ramifications. This article examines the convergence of trade and environmental issues and the divergence of their enforcement because of the institutional competitionbetween GATT/WTO and UN and the normative incongruity between the GATT and MEAs. In so doing, emphasis is placed on the various environment related trade disputes, environment related provisions of the WTO and the various Dispute Settlement Bodies, with a view to assessing the effectiveness of the existing environmental protection approach.
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