Environment in the WTO
and the context of the
Seattle Ministerial Conference

Mathieu Regnier, Canadian student at the Graduate Institute of 
International Studies in Geneva, about the WTO´s troubles with the Seattle aftermath and the difficulty of a „greening“ from within.

Mathieu Regnier

OIKOS, Geneva

An orchestrated system

Some environmental advocacy groups such as Greenpeace or the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) have suggested that the WTO integrate environmental concerns and sustainable development issues into any future trade agreement and that these concerns should be considered in any trade rounds. A whole debate on the impact of trade on the environment exists and I recommend to anyone interested in the matter to read the extensive literature on the subject. My view is that commercial trading in itself does not harm the environment in a well orchestrated system of international trade. An example of a well regulated trade agreement is NAFTA. The stability offered by such agreements permits nations to go work on protecting their environment. This is of course true when all the costs linked to a passage to freer trade (including the environmental costs) are accounted for. 
Bearing in mind our topic and to avoid entering into theoretical considerations, even if it could be argued that the rules of the multilateral trading system are lacking enough "green measures" to support exceptions to free trade when environmental degradation could result from this trade, these concerns find a resonance in the GATT/WTO Agreements. 

Sustainable Development

A good example is found in the recent shrimp/turtle dispute that was brought to the WTO. The Appellate Body of the WTO expressly recognised that the reference to sustainable development in the preamble of the WTO Agreement must be considered in looking at rights and obligations of members. In the preamble, reference was made to the importance of working towards sustainable development. It states that WTO Members recognize that they should seek: "[…] the optimal use of the world's resources in accordance with the objective of sustainable development, seeking both to protect and preserve the environment and to enhance the means for doing so in a manner consistent with their respective needs and concerns at different levels of economic development."
Recent proposals from WTO members like the EU and Norway explicitly seek a greater incorporation of environmental concerns into the international trade framework. Other governments propose reductions in production-linked subsidies in agriculture, energy, mining and fishing. These proposals are essentially driven by environmental concerns. Generally, there is growing recognition (both in advanced and developing economies) that a reduction of over-capacity in production through tariff cuts and less subsidization, would lower environmental damage. A recent WTO special study (14 October 1999) on trade and the environment explains these linkages. It addresses the political economy dimensions of the interface between trade and environment.

An environmental chapter

Although environmental regulation is currently outside of the WTO's competence, the debate on how the WTO should respond to the legitimate concerns of the civil society is important to the Organisation. Through the WTO Member States, suggestions are made for more integration of environmental concerns in the WTO rules. The debate revolves around including "exceptions" or interpretation rules in the GATT/WTO to allow countries and the international community to include (for example through Multilateral Environmental Agreements) notions like the precautionary principle for instance. If the international community should be moving towards wider acceptance of a concept such as the precautionary principle remains an open question. In this matter, there is a growing concern about invoking this principle as a guide to evaluate eventual threats to the environment and human health before waiting for a indefinable level of proof of "safeness".
The environmental chapter always took a conflictual turn between advanced and developing economies in the WTO. Developing countries traditionally refused to condition their integration to the multilateral trading system to the respect of strict ecological criterias while some developed countries wanted to include these measures in response to growing public concern for the environment. If there is certainly more understanding today between the north and the south, the debate remains. For developing countries and countries like India or China, free trade should be implemented according to the existing rules of the system. If nations can disagree on how to protect the environment, it should be impossible to use trade barriers to impose one country's priorities on others. Some concerns have been linked to the deterioration of opened trade expressed by countries that are afraid to see this movement as a way to permit more protectionism and perhaps more environmental degradation associated to protectionism. For many of these countries, green barriers are appearing too easily and that should be avoided. It is in this sense that we talk about green protectionism.

Post-Seattle-Era

The debate on the inclusion of more environmental considerations in the GATT/WTO rules will mainly be influenced by environmental advocacy groups lobbying their governments. By working with these groups and through on-going international negotiation, national governments can build an international civil consensus on how to deal with environmental matters and economic growth in the future. It remains to be seen how the debate will be oriented now in the post-Seattle "era", how governments will respond to what seems to be a clear message from their environmental protection groups: certainly it sounds overall like: "we were in Seattle, we tried putting our considerations through, it failed". Maybe these groups will also have to say something like "we are also in your capitals". 
It seems that groups such as WWF and Greenpeace are slowly realizing that the WTO Secretariat has no power per se over these issues, that it is the wrong target and that after-all, the WTO is a member driven organization that answers the concerns of its members like it has answered to critics since years. n