Achieving sustainable development requires a coherent framework of global environmental and economic governance. Despite this need, little progress has been made in clarifying the relationship between the main elements of this architecture — Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) and the World Trade Organization (WTO).
MEAs and the WTO each have a role to play in sustainable development. MEAs provide co-operative frameworks to address the growing environmental problems facing humanity. The WTO is the pre-eminent political and legal institution at the international level responsible for liberalizing trade and promoting predictable trading relations. Because the economy and the environment are inextricably related, MEAs and the WTO necessarily overlap in their coverage and address many of the same issues, parties, and protocols, albeit from differing perspectives.
Progress in clarifying the relationship between MEAs and the WTO remains limited. Discussions have focused on a narrow range of legal issues surrounding the relationship between WTO rules and and trade measures in MEAs. They have focused on potential conflicts not synergies, and on theoretical not practical linkages, ignoring the range of possibilities for a more mutually supportive relationship between MEAs and the WTO. To achieve a more productive partnership, participants in this discussion must move away from from existing polarized positions towards a common approach the promotes constructive co-operation among trade and environment officials.