National environmental policies and multilateral trade rules

Marion Jansen and Alexander Keck

No ERSD-2004-01, WTO Staff Working Papers from World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division

Abstract: This paper provides an overview of institutional, economic and legal aspects of the relationship between national environmental policies and the multilateral trading system. In particular, it analyses some of the difficulties the WTO Dispute Settlement System faces when having to evaluate disputes on national environmental policies that have an impact on trade. From an economist's point of view it would be desirable that optimal environmental policies, i.e. policies that correct existing market failures, be ruled consistent with multilateral trade law. This paper argues that WTO law in theory provides appropriate tools to ensure rulings that are consistent with economic thinking. Yet, the paper also argues that economists have a rather imperfect knowledge of the precise welfare effects of different types of environmental policies. In practice, therefore, it is questionable whether economists are able to give adequate guidance to legal experts when it comes to the evaluation of national environmental policies. This is one of the reasons why there continues to be some degree of uncertainty as to the possible interpretations of certain WTO rules in the context of environmental disputes.

Keywords: environmental policy; international trade; national treatment; WTO (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F18 K33 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/90687/2/772243964.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:wtowps:ersd200401

DOI: 10.30875/f7c3a652-en

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in WTO Staff Working Papers from World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().