Green Trade Agreements (Electronic book text)

Green Trade Agreements addresses the controversies which arose after the 1991 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade dispute panel ruling against the United States in the tuna-dolphin case. This galvanized an already wary public into opposing expansion of free trade. Environmentalists and free trade advocates became embroiled in a heated controversy: one side regarded GATT as enemies of the environment, while the other side regarded applying environmental rules to trade as a death knell to prosperity. The subsequent North American Free Trade Agreement represented an attempt to reconcile these differences, incorporating both environmental provisions as well as an environmental side agreement. Since this landmark accord, an increasing number of FTAs are including environmental provisions. In this volume Dale Colyer reviews the various types of environmental provisions included in FTAs, examining how these are incorporated and analysing how these provisions work. The effectiveness of specific provisions is assessed, and potential improvements are suggested that could protect the environment without restricting trade.