Typology of environment-related provisions in regional trade agreements

Jose-Antonio Monteiro

No ERSD-2016-13, WTO Staff Working Papers from World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division

Abstract: The last 25 years have witnessed a rapid increase in regional trade agreements (RTAs). Although RTAs generally aim at lowering tariff and non-tariff trade barriers, an increasing number of trade agreements extend their scope to cover specific policy areas such as environmental protection and sustainable development. This paper establishes a comprehensive typology and quantitative analysis of environment-related provisions included in RTAs. The analysis covers all the RTAs currently into force that have been notified to the WTO between 1957 and May 2016, namely 270 trade agreements. While environmental exceptions, along with environmental cooperation continue to be the most common types of environment-related provisions, many other different types of provisions are incorporated in an increasing number of RTAs. The common feature of all environment-related provisions, including environmental exceptions, is their heterogeneity in terms of structure, language and scope.

Keywords: Regional Trade Agreements; Environment; Sustainable Development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F13 F18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env and nep-int
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:wtowps:ersd201613

DOI: 10.30875/2963576b-en

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