Download or read book Trade and Environment Interface written by Rajesh Babu and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The recent years have seen an increase in tension over the interface between trade and environmental regulations, particularly because of the use of environmental measures to gain trade advantage. This debate centres to a large extent around the concerns of the developing countries, whose products and services could be the subject of protectionist measures on the pretext of protection of environment. There is at the same time a genuine and growing concern among the community of states that the negative effects of globalization and liberalization of international trade could have on the environment. Equally genuine are the concerns of the developing countries that they could be the easy target of “green protectionism.” Another fact of this debate is the growing fear among the developed countries that they would lose business to the products originating from developing countries where environmental standards are lower, the cost of production cheaper and the possibility of pollution-intensive industries moving to countries with lower standards, taking with it jobs and revenue. In addition, the thrust of this debate, to a large extent, is due to the pressure and lobbying of Western environmentalists and civil society organizations, urging for stronger and better environmental standards. While the developing countries are conscious of their role and the need for the protection of the global environment, the preferred approach has been to develop international environment standards through conclusion of multilateral environment agreements. Indeed, serious efforts are made in this direction at multilateral fora and most developing countries are active parties to the negotiations. However, there exist among many, particularly the Western civil society organizations, that these multilateral approaches are slow, insufficient and ultimately lack strong implementation power. This has made the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) to be looked upon as the perfect medium for enforcement of environmental standards. Armed with a strong enforcement mechanism and the ability to enforce its decisions, the WTO DSB has become the battle ground in the trade and environment debate. Thus, environmental measures are introduced through the exception provided under Article XX of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs. From the developed countries perspective, the enactment of unilateral measures for the protection of environment could serve many purposes and also present opportunities: firstly, adoption of environment friendly measures would mean catering to the lobbying of the environment groups within their country, and secondly, such measures could provide disguised protection for the domestic industry by denying market access for developing country's 'like products'. In other words, by adopting a unilateral measure, the onus of protection of environment is transferred from the national government to that of the WTO DSB and it falls on the Panel/Appellate Body to adjudicate on the appropriateness of such unilateral measures taken by a Member. This in turn makes the WTO DSB the centre of trade and environment debate, turning the attention of the Western environmentalist from their national government to that of the WTO. The political pressures brought by these groups have considerably influenced the interpretation of the WTO Appellate Body and Panel, and essentially made law that affected the developing countries adversely. The WTO and its predecessor the GATT 1947, though are member driven organizations, have been the target of environmental groups in challenging the WTO decision making on trade and environment issues as antidemocratic and thus lack legitimacy. The fundamental premise was that while the GATT/WTO Agreement provides sufficient leeway for the protection of the environment, the GATT/WTO adjudication bodies have repeatedly struck down environment friendly measures and taken a pro-trade stand. However, this traditional argument/view changed with the ruling of the Appellate Body in the US -Shrimp/Turtle I and II cases, which is considered as a turning point in the trade and environment interface. This decision marked a paradigm shift in the approach of the Appellate Body in dealing with unilateral environmental measures having trade implications. By sanctioning the legitimacy and broadening the scope of such measures within the WTO framework, the jurisprudential evolution of trade and environment interface has tilted the balance towards environment protection, particularly in areas were no international standardization or agreement is concluded. This development has been seen with great concern by the developing countries, particularly because, with the relaxed criteria sanctioned by the Appellate Body for unilateral environment measures, the developed countries could distort the flow of goods from the developing countries to their markets (market access commitments). The paper seeks to understand the implications of the WTO Appellate Body ruling in US - Shrimp/Turtle cases from the perspective of developing countries. The paper would focus on the defence available under the GATT Article XX 'General Exceptions', which provides the Member States the leeway necessary for the protection of environment. Article XX of GATT is the most important provision governing the operations of the WTO affecting environment and has been the subject of elaborate scrutiny by the Panel/Appellate Body. The paper also undertakes an analysis of the jurisprudential evolution of the GATT Article XX, in the context of environment measures. More importantly, the Paper will focus on the decisions and interpretation delivered by the Appellate Body in the Shrimp/Turtle cases which is alleged to have permitted back door entry of those issues which are not settled in the WTO, in favour of the United States of America (US) and the European Communities (EC). This decision, it has been widely observed, has upset the balance of negotiated rights and obligations and has legitimized the use of unilateral extraterritorial measures which serves as disguised restrictions against the developing countries exports.