Environmental Related Disputes on Trade Issues in GATT and WTO from 1982-2002

Abstract

The General Agreement on Tariff and Trade/World Organization (GATT/WTO) is perceived as one of the few multilateral institutions dealing with trade and environment issues that has the means to settle trade-related environmental disputes unlike, for example, United Nations Environmental Program, (UNEP), United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) or the Commission on Sustainable Development. In the light of this, many perceive the GATT/WTO as the institution that will eventually deal with and resolve trade and environment issues. The paper took a bird’s eye view of the WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism (DSM) on the environmental issues. It seeks to evaluate how far GATT/WTO provisions aid in settlement of environmental related disputes on trade issues by highlights the efficacy and the benefits of the DSM and its importance as a tool for developing countries to defend their interests when nullified or impaired by other Members, in particular developed country Members, while identifying the difficulties faced. The fact that WTO cannot adequately provide an equal solution to environmental trade disputes, expectations from environmentalists may often be too high. The WTO Secretariat itself emphasizes “that the WTO is not fully environmental protection agency. This has raised contradiction under the organization which this paper intends to investigate. To achieve this objective and to deal with research problem, we undertook desk research in libraries, relevant documentation centers, and internet website which enable to review existing literature on the question. The findings reveal that even though some of the WTO provisions are competence for policy coordination in this area is limited to trade policies, and those trade-related aspects of environmental policies which may result in a significant effect on trade, but it is grossly lacking at the level of settlement of environmental related disputes on trade issues.