The GATT blunder.

• Author: French, Hilary F.
• Position: Editorial

As the clock ticked toward the December 15 deadline for striking a deal in the seven-year-long "Uruguay Round" of trade talks to expand the scope of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), negotiators scrambled to forge a compromise between conflicting agendas and interests. Despite some modest last-minute improvements, the global environment came out largely the loser in this high-stakes poker game.

In order not to further bog down the protracted Uruguay Round, GATT officials and governmental negotiators from around the world had argued for the past few years that updating GATT's rules to adequately account for environmental imperatives would have to await the next negotiating round. Many environmentalists had generously conceded this point, but at the same time urged that the final Uruguay Round text "do no harm"--that is, not make existing trade rules materially worse for the environment. In addition, they asked for a commitment to put environmental issues high on the post-Uruguay Round negotiating agenda.

Unfortunately, the "do no harm" test was not met: As the agreement currently stands, it will now be easier for countries to charge that some individual nations' environmental product standards, such as automotive fuel efficiency requirements, recycled paper content stipulations, and refillable bottle laws, are unfair restrictions on commerce--"technical barriers to trade" in GATT-speak. Certain food safety laws, such as pesticide residue limitations, could also be vulnerable. With the negotiating texts now closed, there is little that can be done to improve the troublesome provisions. Still, as nations write their own implementing legislation for the agreement, they could clarify that they maintain the prerogative to set their own domestic environmental laws, provided they are not protectionist measures dressed up in environmental clothing.

To ensure that environmental...