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On current evidence, the answer to the question "is the CTE serious about fulfilling its mandate?" has to be no. On two of the three issues on which the committee has focused, the potential for conflicts between trade and environment policy has been enhanced rather than diminished. Rather than being serious about helping to integrate these policies, the CTE could prove to be a serious threat to the environment unless modifications are made to the way it works. Given that danger, some parts of the environmental community are likely to call for the CTE to be closed down. However, if one understands the CTE for what it is a classroom in which WTO Members are learning about the relationship between trade, environment and sustainable development closure would be unwise or at least premature. The first end-of-term report is a very poor one, but the response should not be to shut down the class. Ultimately the WTO will have to learn about these relationships. A process internal to this institution, and fully informed by the relevant external institutions and non-state actors, is necessary to achieve this. Only when this education process has been put on track, and the lessons are being absorbed by other parts of the WTOs institutional structure, will the CTE become dispensible. However, putting that process on track is a major task, for both governments and NGOs. They must not fail, otherwise history will repeat itself and the environment and sustainable development will be left out of the first round of WTO trade negotiations, as it was from the last round of GATT negotiations. |