Greening the GATT: Trade, Environment, and the Future

by Daniel Esty

Overview

There is growing consensus that new international rules and principles are needed to reconcile conflicts, and promote complementarities, between trade and environmental goals. The issue is especially acute for very poor countries striving for rapid economic growth. Esty, a former Environmental Protection Agency official with extensive experience in trade and environmental negotiations, examines the vital connections between trade, environment and development. He argues that current international trade rules and institutions must be significantly reformed to address environmental concerns while still promoting economic growth and development. Esty offers new international rules and principles to help make trade and environmental policies work together to better achieve sustainable economic progress. He concludes with recommendations for a Global Environmental Organization (GEO) to promote simultaneous achievement of trade environmental goals.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780881322057
Publisher:	Peterson Institute for International Economics
Publication date:	04/01/1994
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	319
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Daniel C. Esty was a senior fellow in 1994 and is an American environmental lawyer and policymaker. He is the Hillhouse professor at Yale University with appointments at the Yale Law School and the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

Table of Contents

	Preface	xi
	Acknowledgments	xv
	Introduction	1
1	Origins of the Trade and Environment Conflict	9
	Rising Environmental Interest	9
	Dispute over the Ends and Means of Environmentalism	14
	Ecological Interdependence	17
	Economic Interdependence	20
	Evolving Threats to Freer Trade	23
	Changing International Scene	24
	Triggering Events	27
2	Conflict or Convergence	35
	A Clash of Cultures	36
	A Clash of Paradigms	37
	A Clash of Judgments	40
	The Environmental Challenge	42
	GATT's Existing Rules	46
	The GATT-Specific Environmentalist Critique	52
	Prospects for Convergence	54
3	Making Trade Work for the Environment	61
	The "Trade Is Pro-Environment" Case	63
	Policy Implications	69
	Attacking the Market Failure	70
4	GATTing the Greens	73
	The GATT's Role in Fixing the Trade Policy Political Failure	75
	Institutional Imbalance	77
	Building a Global Environmental Organization	78
	Other Funding Options	86
	Not Another International Organization!	89
	A Reality Check	98
5	New Rules for Trade and Environment Disputes	99
	Does Trade Liberalization Threaten Environmental Regulation?	100
	Trade Measures as Leverage	105
	The Value of International Standards	108
	Uniformity versus Diversity	111
	US Environmental Federalism	111
	The Commerce Clause Standard	113
	A New International Trade-Environment Test	114
	What Remedies Are Appropriate?	130
	Ecolabeling	134
	Policy Recommendations	134
6	Wielding Swords: The Offensive Use of Environmental Trade Measures	137
	Extraterritoriality Is Not the Issue	139
	Unilateralism: Evil or Necessity?	142
	The Multilateral Ideal	145
	Policy Recommendations	153
7	More Swords: Competitiveness, Ecoduties, and Harmonization	155
	How Big an Issue?	155
	The Critical Question	156
	Responding to Divergent Environmental Standards	157
	Policy Recommendations	178
8	The Battle for Sustainable Development	181
	Sustainability versus Development	183
	Ecoimperialism	185
	Backfiring Trade Restrictions	188
	A Lack of Carrots	189
	Trade Not Aid	192
	Finding New Carrots	193
9	Greening the GATT: Specific Steps	205
	A Green Round Agenda	206
	Procedural Reforms	206
	Substantive GATT Reform	215
	International Environmental Agreements	218
	Environmental Legitimacy	220
	Article XX Revisions	221
	Scale of Trade Measures	222
	Uruguay Round Advances	223
10	Summary and Conclusions	225
	Two Bridges	226
	Economic and Political Policy Failures	227
	GATTing the Greens	230
	Greening the GATT	231
	Next Steps	238
	North-South Issues	238
	Conclusion	239
Appendix A	A Brief History of the GATT	243
Appendix B	Scale of Trade Measures	249
Appendix C	Key Trade and Environment Cases	257
Appendix D	Multilateral Environmental Agreements with Trade Provisions	275
Appendix E	Matrix of Appropriate Unilateral Trade Measures	283
	References	285
	Index	307

Editorial Reviews

...concise, highly readable, well-reasoned analysis.

William K. Reilly

Daniel Esty lucidly explores among the most pressing policy arenas confounding the world community. Whatever one's perspective on the environment, the book makes for fascinating reading.

Michael E. Porter