Trade and the Environment
This chapter provides an overview of a broad range of issues that arise at the interface of trade and the environment. After this introduction, Section II considers trade and environment in the context of the WTO, by examining relevant WTO agreements, recent trade disputes with environmental implications, the WTO’s Committee on Trade and Environment (“CTE”), and relevant mandates resulting from the recent WTO Fourth Ministerial in Doha, Qatar. Section III then seeks to place the traditional issues of trade and environment in the broader context of sustainable development, a concept that connotes a development path that optimizes human activities within economic, social and environmental spheres, and that meets the needs of present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. This is followed in subsequent sections by a thematic discussion of the main trade and environment issues, organized according to three main categories: 1) issues arising from material linkages between trade and other facets of the world we live in (Section IV); 2) legal and policyrelated issues arising between trade and other fields of law and policy (Section V); and 3) organizational issues arising between the WTO and other institutional arrangements (Section VI). Section VII concludes with some thoughts on the future development of international economic law and policy as it applies to the environment and sustainable development. The scope, diversity and complexity of this field prevent a single chapter from covering the subject in detail; this chapter, consequently, is designed to provide a sketch of some of the main issues of trade and environment and to complement the discussion of related issues as they are addressed in other chapters of this work.
'Multifunctionality' And 'Non-Trade Concerns' In The Agriculture Negotiations
In March 2000 talks recommenced on the renegotiation of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture after the failure of the Seattle Ministerial Meeting in December 1999. International agricultural trade regulation has always been challenging for both the GATT and the WTO and it is likely that it will remain difficult in the renegotiation discussions. The root of the problem this time is whether 'non-trade concerns' should be included into the amended agreement. In essence, Members are being asked to consider if agricultural support measures can be retained where they also have positive effects in other sectors. This note highlights the problems of incorporating 'non-trade concerns', whilst preventing it becoming yet another smokescreen for agricultural protectionism. The note highlights three difficulties. Firstly, whether there is a difference between the terms 'multifunctionality' and 'non-trade concerns'. Secondly, which issues could be 'non-trade trade concerns' for the purposes of the amended agreement, and thirdly, the difficulties relating to the implementation method.
Did the metamorphosis from Export Processing Zones to Special Economic Zones improve the efficiency of trade enclaves in India?
In this paper, the efficiency of seven conventional Special Economic Zones in India is analyzed, by adopting a stochastic production frontier technique, for the period between 1986–1987 and 2007–2008.Results indicate that although the efficiency scores of these enclaves have improved over the years, specifically with the introduction of the SEZ policy (2000–2001), it is far below the threshold level as identified in the literature. Besides, one can also observe a discrepancy emerging between better export earning zones and efficient zones. On the determinants side, policy intervention and large geographical area, accompanied by clustering of units, are found to have impacted the efficiency scores of these enclaves positively.