Greening the WTO's Disputes Settlement Understanding: Opportunities and Risks

Jim Rose ()
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Jim Rose: New Zealand Treasury, https://treasury.govt.nz/

No 01/28, Treasury Working Paper Series from New Zealand Treasury

Abstract: It is reasonable to ask whether the WTO’s rules may hamper the ability of national and sub-national governments to be genuine pacesetters in environmental law making. Environmentalists consider that the WTO’s disputes panels may encourage governments to converge to the relevant international standard for a particular risk regulation because such uniformity is likely to reduce the incidence of trade disputes. Proposals that go beyond environmental advocacy and greater transparency in the WTO’s disputes settlement process—changes such as a weakening of the sound science requirement and incorporating stronger forms of the precautionary principle into WTO agreements on biosecurity laws—reduce due process safeguards against disguised regulatory protectionism in New Zealand’s agricultural export markets.

Keywords: World Trade Organization; trade disputes; environment; conservation; New Zealand (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 F18 K32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 28 pages
Date: 2001
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nzt:nztwps:01/28

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