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(II) “Green Provisions”–- Environment-Related Provisions in WTO Agreements
The primary objective of the WTO is not the protection of the environment. The WTO has no specific agreement dealing with the environment. However, a number of the WTO agreements include provisions dealing with environmental concerns.
(i) GATT Article XX
Article XX of the GATT makes some concessions to trade-related environmental measures, albeit without using the word "environment". The relevant part of Article XX reads as follows:
“Subject to the requirement that such measures are not applied in a manner which would constitute a means of arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination between countries where the same conditions prevail, or a disguised restriction on international trade, nothing in this Agreement shall be construed to prevent the adoption or enforcement by any contracting party of measures:
(b) necessary to protect human, animal or plant life or health;
(g) relating to the conservation of exhaustible natural resources if such measures are made effective in conjunction with restrictions on domestic production or consumption;…”
On its face, Article XX seems to provide comfort to environmentalists and recognition of the effects that trade may have on the environment. However, it raises several problems, largely because its broad terms can be subject to widely differing interpretations.
(ii) The Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the WTO
The first paragraph of the Preamble of the WTO Agreement includes, for the first time in the context of the multilateral trading system, reference to the objective of sustainable development and to the need to protect and preserve the environment. It states:
“Recognizing that their relations in the field of trade and economic endeavour should be conducted with a view to raising standards of living, ensuring full employment and a large and steadily growing volume of real income and effective demand, and expanding the production of and trade in goods and services, while allowing for the optimal use of the world’s resources in accordance with the objective of sustainable development, seeking both to protect and preserve the environment and to enhance the means for doing so in a manner consistent with their respective needs and concerns at different levels of economic development, ...”
(iii) Other Agreements with Environmental Provisions
There are some other WTO agreements including environment-related provisions, for instance, Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), the General Agreement on Trade in Services, the Agreements on Agriculture, Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS), Subsidies and Countervailing Measures, and Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).
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