Trade Rules And Climate Change

Contrary to what some commentators might believe, the World Trade Organization (WTO) can accommodate measures focussed on protecting the environment. But it does impose important disciplines on those measures when they impact on international trade.

The balance may prove to be important as climate change measures around the world begin to impact on the conditions of competition between products from different countries.

In enunciating the objectives of the WTO when it was founded at Marrakesh in 1994, WTO Members recognised the need to protect and preserve the environment. Indeed, one of the preambular paragraphs of the Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the WTO observes: