Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
address non-tari
barriers were being perceived in the environmental community as a
challenge to the legitimacy of environmental measures.
With few exceptions, until the early 1990s, there was very little communication between
trade o
ff
cials operating at the international level and not much
more at the national level. As a result, the trade e
cials and environment o
ects of environmental laws and regu-
lations were often not considered by the governments imposing them. Similarly, the envi-
ronmental e
ff
ects of trade and investment liberalization, and the impact of trade law
disciplines were often not considered.
As a result of the new 'trade and environment' debate beginning in the early 1990s, there
is now much greater understanding of these linkages. Trade o
ff
cials at the WTO and in
national capitals are much more aware of the linkages between trade and environment,
and say that they are committed to avoiding con
fl
icts. Similarly, there is greater recogni-
tion by environmental o
cials as to how trade restrictions can be overused or misused in
the pursuit of environmental goals. Considerable credit should be given to many founda-
tions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), institutes and business groups that
devoted attention to these issues from the early 1990s onward.
Of course, the fact that international policy on the 'trade and environment' is more
coherent and constructive now than it was in the 1980s and 1990s does not mean that
this level of progress is su
cient or that the underlying problems have been solved.
Environmental problems will always be a challenge on a planet where governmental units
do not exactly match ecosystems. Another way of saying this is that so long as the poli-
cies in one country can impose externalities on others, and so long as prices in the market
are not fully re
ective of environmental costs, there will be a need for international gov-
ernance to manage the transborder con
fl
icts that will inevitably ensue. In a recent speech,
WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy explained that governance 'is a decision-making
process that through consultation, dialogue, exchange and mutual respect, seeks to ensure
coexistence and in some cases coherence between di
fl
erent and sometimes divergent
points of view' (Lamy, 2006). That will be a key challenge for global governance in the
twenty-
ff
rst century.
Because all major ecological problems a
fi
ff
ect the world economy - for example, climate
change, biodiversity, forestry,
sheries and pollution - linkages between the world trading
system and environmental policies are inevitable. In Lamy's paradigm, there is a need for
governance because individual governments acting alone will not, as a practical matter,
adopt policies that are e
fi
cient on a global scale. Although individuals can act in a self-
interested way in the market knowing that an invisible hand exists to help generate
e
ciency dynamic does not automatically ensue
in global politics if governments act only in a self-interested way toward other countries.
One of the contributions of environmentalist Konrad von Moltke, about 20 years ago,
was the dictum that 'unmanaged environmental problems become trade problems'. There
are two insights in this dictum. The
cient outcomes, the same overall pro-e
fi
rst is that major environmental problems can never
be de
nitively solved; new developments will always spawn new problems that require new
solutions and better management. The second insight is that governments need to coop-
erate to solve environmental problems, and when such cooperation is not forthcoming, a
government stymied in getting the cooperation it seeks may resort to a trade measure. This
dynamic of environmental problems spilling out into the trading system can be seen in
many of the major trade-environment con
fi
fl
icts to date.
