Free International Trade and Protection of the Environment: Irreconcilable Conflict?

1992 ◽  
Vol 86 (4) ◽  
pp. 700-727 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas J. Schoenbaum
Keyword(s):  
International Trade ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Trading System ◽  
International Consensus ◽  
Global Environmental Problems ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Multilateral Trading System ◽  
Policy Measures ◽  
Environmental Measures

States should cooperate to promote a supportive and open international economic system that would lead to economic growth and sustainable development in all countries, to better address the problems of environmental degradation. Trade policy measures for environmental purposes should not constitute a means of arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination or a disguised restriction on international trade. Unilateral actions to deal with environmental challenges outside the jurisdiction of the importing country should be avoided. Environmental measures addressing transboundary or global environmental problems should, as far as possible, be based on an international consensus.Principle 12 Rio Declaration on Environment and DevelopmentThe global multilateral trading system and its centerpiece, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), are facing a new challenge from a quite unexpected quarter. The GATT is under attack by some in the environmental community who charge that international free trade blindly fosters the exploitation of natural resources. The GATT is depicted as a sinister charter that allows “big business” a free hand to plunder the bounty of the natural world. In certain environmentalists’ view, “free trade can destroy the environment.” Thus, a segment of the large and influential environmentalist lobby has joined the growing coalition of interests seeking to scuttle what is left of international free trade.

Doha Development Round

2014 ◽  
pp. 74-83
Author(s):  
Badar Iqbal ◽  
Munir Hasan
Keyword(s):  
World Trade Organization ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Trade Negotiations ◽  
Global Trade ◽  
New Regionalism ◽  
Trading System ◽  
Multilateral Trading System ◽  
The Future

More than 11 years have passed and Doha Development Round (DDR) has been in the doldrums, having full uncertainties that may result in closure. Trade negotiations are at a standstill, resulting in revivalism of trade protectionism in the name of “new regionalism” or preferential agreements (India-Japan, India-EU). This would lead to dismantling multilateral trading system for which World Trade Organization was created in January 1995. It is vital to protect and preserve the gains of the WTO in a variety of related areas. Therefore, the success of a multilateral trading system is imperative, and this could only be possible when DDR is successful and revivalism takes place. If impasse is continued, the concept and practices of free trade would be transformed into trade protectionism in the name of new regionalism. If it happens, then the future of global trade is uncertain and there would be enormous loss of potential and opportunities of creation of trade, and no country could afford it. Doha is stuck. Where do we go from here? The present chapter analyses the issues relating to the closure vs. success of the DDR. Every effort must be made to keep it alive both in the interest of mankind and the globe. If in 12th round, nothing concrete comes up, then the member countries are thinking and planning to replace it by Global Recovery Round (GRR), which is becoming more significant to deal with. Hence, this chapter attempts to examine the three options, namely closure, revival, and replace.

Global Environmental Politics

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loren Cass
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Environmental Politics ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Environmental Problems ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Field Of Study ◽  
Science And Policy ◽  
Global Environmental Problems ◽  
Global Environmental Politics ◽  
Global Environmental

Global environmental politics is a relatively new field of study within international relations that focuses on issues related to the interaction of humans and the natural world. As early as the mid-19th century, scholars wrote about the role of natural resources in global security and political economy. However, much of the literature prior to the 1980s related specifically to resource extraction and development issues. It was only in the 1980s and into the 1990s that global environmental politics began to establish itself as a distinct field with its own dedicated journals and publishers, and the focus of study expanded to include global environmental problems such as ozone depletion, climate change, biodiversity loss, deforestation, and desertification. It has emerged as a center of interdisciplinary work that integrates research from a range of fields, including geography, economics, history, law, biology, and numerous others. The interdisciplinary approach makes it difficult to define the boundaries in this rather immense field of study. The focus in this article will be on global environmental politics research that falls primarily within the larger field of international relations. Global environmental problems present many unique challenges and have thus spawned a range of subfields of study. Global environmental problems frequently involve substantial scientific complexity and ambiguity. This fact has produced a wide-ranging scholarship on the relationships between science and policy. The very long timeframes of both the consequences of environmental problems as well as the efforts to address them create a number of governance challenges given the much shorter political timeframes of politicians and diplomats. In addition, because environmental problems typically do not respect borders, they pose challenges for international cooperation, which has thus produced a growing literature on global environmental governance. The widespread potential for massive economic, political, and ecological dislocation from the consequences of global environmental problems as well as from the potential policies to address those problems have led scholars to study global environmental politics from every paradigm within international relations as well as drawing on research in numerous other disciplines. Finally, efforts to address the consequences of environmental problems have raised controversial ethical and distributive-justice questions that have produced an important philosophical literature within global environmental politics. Global environmental politics has thus emerged as a rich and diverse area of scholarship.

scholarly journals Are Preferential Trading Arrangements Trade-Liberalizing or Protectionist?

1999 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 105-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne O Krueger
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
Free Trade Agreements ◽  
Trade Agreements ◽  
Trading System ◽  
Preferential Trade ◽  
Multilateral Trading System ◽  
Preferential Trading ◽  
Preferential Trading Arrangements

Preferential trade arrangements, and especially free trade agreements, have mushroomed in importance in the 1990s. This has revived research on the effects of these arrangements, both on the welfare of the member countries and those excluded, and on the momentum for further liberalization of the open multilateral trading system. This paper reviews the analyses and evidence to date as to these effects, showing that analytically anything can happen and that, to date, there has been insufficient experience to draw conclusions from empirical evidence.

The future of the WTO: some comments on the Sutherland Report

2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 379-389
Author(s):  
RICHARD BLACKHURST
Keyword(s):  
International Trade ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Less Developed Countries ◽  
Industrialized Countries ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Trading System ◽  
Primary Products ◽  
Multilateral Trading System ◽  
The Future

Three times since its founding in 1948, the GATT/WTO has turned to outside experts for help in finding solutions to pressing issues confronting the multilateral trading system. In 1957 the Contracting Parties decided to create a panel of three (later four) internationally recognized experts in international trade and finance to consider trends in world trade, andin particular the failure of the trade of the less developed countries to develop as rapidly as that of industrialized countries, excessive short-term fluctuations in prices of primary products, and widespread resort to agricultural protection.

scholarly journals Chinese Rationale for Free Trade Agreements

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farrukh Kayani ◽  
Zhongxiu Zhao
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Free Trade Agreements ◽  
Trade Agreements ◽  
Trading System ◽  
Government Interventions ◽  
Multilateral Trading System ◽  
The Government ◽  
East Asian Economies

In East Asia economic regionalism and Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) are proliferating at tremendous pace despite being the latecomer as compared to Americas and Europe. Proliferation of FTAs in East Asia started to spread after the Asian financial crisis of 1997. The East Asian economies were dissatisfied with the way the IMF handled the crisis, particularly in Thailand and Indonesia. Presently, about over 100 FTAs are at various stages of development in East Asia. China is also actively engaged in FTAs like the other East Asian neighboring countries for achieving multiple objectives. In this paper we analyzed the detailed reasons that why China is pursuing FTAs? Furthermore, it is said that FTAs may jeopardize the multilateral trading system. As FTAs undermine the WTO policy of maintaining a liberal, non discriminatory and multilateral trading system by supporting the government interventions and prudential controls. Thus we would also explore that whether FTAs are building or stumbling blocks?

On the Fairness of the Multilateral Trading System

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Clara Brandi
Keyword(s):  
International Trade ◽  
Gains From Trade ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Trading System ◽  
Multilateral Trading System ◽  
The Multilateral Trading System

AbstractThree perspectives on international trade are present in current debates. From the first perspective, trade is regarded as a set of individual transactions among consenting parties and considerations of fairness and justice barely feature, if at all. The second perspective underlines the importance of background structures for trade, maintained by states, which gives rise considerations of fairness and justice. One prominent version of this perspective, for example as defended by Aaron James, views all trading states as having in principle equal claims to the gains from trade. A third perspective puts the focus on exploitation. In this special issue, Mathias

scholarly journals Reflection on Labor Standard’s Linkage to International Trade

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 165
Author(s):  
Yu-hong Xu
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
International Trade ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Fundamental Difference ◽  
Labor Standards ◽  
Trading System ◽  
Labor Standard ◽  
Multilateral Trading System ◽  
The Developed Countries

Developed countries proposed to link labor standard up to the international trade, which was based on profound economic and social foundation. On this issue, there is a fundamental difference between developed and developing countries: the developed countries think that the low labor standards in the developing countries are a reflection of social dumping, while the developing countries consider labor standard’s linkage to the international trade as an embodiment of trade protectionism in developed countries. Nevertheless, the developed countries still take various measures to promote labor standards in the international trade and this trend tends to be intensified. The ultimate goal of developed countries is to integrate labor standards into the WTO multilateral trading system, and developing countries must face this reality.

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