Trade and environment institutions - Trade and the Environment - page 308

complicated decision-making process involving both national governments and authori-
tative EU-level institutions such as the European Commission and the European
Parliament. For an overview, see Dinan, 2005). In international trade, sovereignty has
been pooled to the extent that it is the EU, rather than its member countries, that negoti-
ates international trade agreements. The situation with MEAs is more complicated, with
the EU representing member countries at some environmental IOs, and the member coun-
tries representing themselves in others.
Internally, the EU is o

ect
no international trade rules governing goods and services exported from one country to
another within the Union. Economically (in principle, at least) there are no borders to
cross. Since a good made in one EU country can enter and be sold in other EU countries
without having to pass through an economic border, there is no real way for environmen-
tal rules to discriminate between domestically produced goods and those produced else-
where in the EU. This makes any rules governing the relationship between trade within
the EU and environmental regulation moot. The EU is also in many ways a single envi-
ronmental area ( e.g. Andonova, 2003; Carmin and VanDeveer, 2005; Oberthür and
Gehring, 2006 ) .Key decisions about the overall direction of environmental policy, as well
as many detailed regulations, are promulgated at the Union level. This level of govern-
ment also controls many resources that are controlled by countries elsewhere, such as
fi

cially a single economic area. This means that there are in e ff

shery resources in the Union's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Thus when one studies
the relationship between trade and the environment, the EU looks much more like a
federal country such as the USA or Canada, where di

ff erent levels of government have

authority over di erent aspects of environmental policy, than like traditional interna-

tional trade and environment IOs.
Because of their pooled-sovereignty aspect, successful regional integration organiza-
tions allow for much stronger levels of environmental protection than are feasible with
traditional MEAs, and to a large extent obviate the trade and environment tension in the
way that this tension is discussed in the context of traditional IOs. From outside the inte-
gration organizations, they look more like countries than IOs with respect to trade and
environment issues. But referring to 'organizations' in the plural may be misleading - it
may well be the case that the EU is an anomaly. In any case, none of the other IOs that
claim to be heading towards regional integration are likely to get there in any meaningful
sense in the foreseeable future.

ff

Non-regulatory organizations
The nal category of IO relevant to the nexus between international trade and environ-

mental management is institutions that provide countries with technical and

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nancial
advice and assistance in dealing with this nexus. This category includes both IOs focused
primarily on trade issues, and those that focus primarily on environmental issues. It
should be noted that many of the institutions discussed above also provide advice and
assistance to smaller and poorer countries that would otherwise have trouble meeting
their commitments under international agreements. For example, the WTO provides
technical assistance by providing training in international trade law and policy for o

fi

cials
from member countries ( e.g. WTO, 2006 ) . The Montreal Protocol includes a Multilateral
Fund that provides nancial assistance to countries to transition to non-ozone-depleting

chemicals ( DeSombre and Kaufmann, 1996 ) . As such, the line between the

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fi rst two