WTO and the Environment.

• Author: Smith, Don C.
• Position: Book Review

Sweet & Maxwell, London (2001); (146 [pounds sterling]); ISBN: 0-4218-2420-4; 368 pp. (hardcover).

One of the most vexing contemporary economic, legal, and political issues is the interrelationship between and underlying tension involving trade policy and environmental policy. Indeed, there has never been a time when trade and the environment have been so inextricably interwoven. This has come about largely because of the environmental ramifications relating to where goods are produced and sold. Moreover, despite the poor showing of the world economy in the last several years, it has been estimated that trade (measured in terms of value) in merchandise exports amounted to $6,240 billion in 2002 while trade related to commercial services reached a new record of $1,540 billion. (1)

The importance of encouraging cross-border trade has long been an important element in world economic development. However, it was not until the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) (2) in 1995 that trade was "elevated to its true level in the international economic pantheon." (3) The objective of the WTO is to encourage, and oversee, the liberalization of trade between nation state members. (4) In the context of the WTO, nation state members agree to the avoidance of discriminatory trade practices. (5)

It is in this context that Fiona Macmillan undertakes consideration of the trade-environment issue through the prism of the WTO by looking at the protection of the environment on one hand and the liberalization of trade on the other. In so doing, the book aims to assess the way in which the WTO's legal rules and system interact with environmental concerns.

In terms of organization, Ms. Macmillan follows a logical and inclusive approach. Chapter 1 addresses general issues about trade and the environment. Chapter 2 considers the WTO system including rule making and conflicts between WTO agreements and multilateral environmental agreements. In Chapter 3 the institutional landscape of environmental policy is described and assessed. Chapter 4 provides a look at the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and its relationship to environmental protection. Access to genetic resources and biotechnology and trade are the focus of Chapters 5 and 6. Trade in environmental services is analyzed in Chapter 7 while Chapter 8 reviews the difficulty associated with the regulation of multinational enterprises in the context of the environment. Chapter 9 provides a...