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Two-and-half years ago in Marrakech, at the conclusion of the GATT Uruguay Round, trade ministers agreed to establish a Committee on Trade and Environment (CTE). A month ago that committee produced its first report, Chapter 3 of which contains the committees conclusions and recommendations. This critique takes those conclusions and recommendations and, with reference to specific points, attempts to answer the question as to whether the CTE is serious about fulfilling its stated aims of:
The short answer to this question is "no" no concrete step forward is taken toward either of these objectives. The length of time the committee has laboured to produce its weak recommendations raises a major question about the efficiency of this body. The committee has refused to deal with some of the crucial underlying issues, such as that of processing and production methods (PPMs), which have to be resolved if WTO rules are to be supportive of environmental policies. Furthermore, the substance of some of the CTEs recommendations gives cause for serious concern from an environmental perspective. There are backward steps in the report. The concern this causes is reinforced by the CTE trying to go it alone on key trade and environment issues, assuming or implying that the WTO is the ultimate arbiter on this policy interface. Guarding and even expanding its decision-making territory ("jurisdiction") on the legal and technical issues it has examined appears to have been the CTEs main objective. Clearly, the WTO has yet to understand that if trade and environment policies are to to be integrated, it is just one of the intergovernmental bodies that must play a cooperative role in this process. Elsewhere in the CTEs report there is some evidence that WTO Members are beginning to understand that trade liberalization alone will not yield sustainable development, and that effective environmental policies are required too. That is an advance, albeit a belated one, that offers some hope for the future. |