Recent years have witnessed a proliferation of laws regulating the environment. Such laws aim to protect the environment of the legislating country and increasingly, the environment beyond its borders. While the objectives of these rules appear to be laudable ones, environmental regulation is frequently criticized as trade-restrictive and protectionist. In addition, attempts to regulate foreign production processes are attacked as interfering with the sovereign right of foreign countries to determine their own standards of environmental management. Environmental protection goals may also hinder international trade and consequently become vulnerable to legal challenge under international trade law. The manner in which international trade law weights the competing objectives of environmental protection and trade liberalization is the subject of this book. The experience of the European Economic Community in this regard provides a useful backdrop against which the treatment of environmental regulation under the GATT can be both examined and improved. The author concludes the GATT reforms, such as the incorporation of environmental principes into GATT jurisprudence, are critical to ensuring the legality of legitimate environmental protection measures. Such efforts would serve to safeguard both the environment and a more stable international trading system. The study was financed by the Brussels Capital Region through the Visiting Scientist's Programme.

A robust, exhaustive, and systematic legal analysis of the conflicts opposing integration of internal market and free competition rules with the environmental protection rules, including climate change rules, taken at an EU and national level.

​The institutional and legal status of the WTO, with its integrated dispute settlement system, provides a framework for certainty, security and stability for trade as well as a coherent system to protect intellectual property rights. In all member countries and their respective enterprises, WTO regulations need to be considered when designing and implementing trade-related strategies for business operations in the integrated global market. This book aims at giving upper-level undergraduates and graduate students a comprehensive understanding of the public regulations related to international trade within the WTO mechanism and equip them, as potential policy makers and future practitioners in international trade, with the practical skills to interpret and apply the multilateral trade regulations as outlined by the WTO.

International agreements and environmental regulations are important constraints in today's business context. By analyzing development and case studies within NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), the authors demonstrate how firms can develop strategies which utilize international trade and environment regimes to open up international markets.

This book traces the evolution of environmental principles from their origins as vague political slogans reflecting fears about environmental hazards to their embodiment in enforceable laws. Since the early 1970s environmental issues have taken on an ever increasing profile. This has been duein part to a fundamental change in the type and scale of risk posed by industry. Issues such as global warming, GM food, and mad cow disease typify the new kinds of risk: potentially catastrophic consequences could ensue yet there is no scientific agreement over their precise causation, duration andother concerns. Environmental law has always responded to risks posed by industrial society but the new generation of risks have required a new set of environmental principles, emerging from a combination of public fears, science, ethics and established legal practice. This book shows how three ofthe most important principles of modern environmental law grew out of this new age of ecological risk: the polluter pays principle, the preventive principle and the precautionary principle. The author examines the legal force of these principles and in the process offers a novel theory of normformation in environmental law by unearthing new grounds of legality.The book will be of interest to all with an interest in environmental law and policy, in the relationship between law and science, and in the ways in which political and ethical values can become embodied in laws.

Volume 1 = Historical and conceptual foundations ; Volume 2 = Dispute settlement in the world ; Volume 3 = Administered protection ; Volume 4 = The Uruguay round and beyond.

The Guide to Sustainable Development and Environmental Policy is a comprehensive presentation of definitions, philosophies, policies, models, and analyses of global environmental and developmental issues. With a wealth of comparative, multidisciplinary, and geographically varied perspectives on environmental governance, it also provides detailed and balanced discussions about specific environmental issues. The guide combines formal, objective entries with critical commentaries that emphasize different opinions and controversies. With succinct explanations of more than a thousand terms, thoughtful interpretations by international experts, and helpful cross-referencing, this resource is designed to serve as a roadmap for understanding the issues and debates in the overlapping fields of environment and development. Intended for use by activists, journalists, policymakers, students, scholars, and interested citizens, the Guide to Sustainable Development and Environmental Policy will be a helpful tool for anyone trying to get a comprehensive look at the many environmental organizations, schools of thought, development programs, international environmental treaties, conventions, and strategies that have proliferated in the past few decades.

This volume examines the range of Non-Trade Concerns (NTCs) that may conflict with international economic rules and proposes ways to protect them within international law and international economic law. Globalization without local concerns can endanger relevant issues such as good governance, human rights, right to water, right to food, social, economic, cultural and environmental rights, labor rights, access to knowledge, public health, social welfare, consumer interests and animal welfare, climate change, energy, environmental protection and sustainable development, product safety, food safety and security. Focusing on China, the book shows the current trends of Chinese law and policy towards international standards. The authors argue that China can play a leading role in this context: not only has China adopted several reforms and new regulations to address NTCs; but it has started to play a very relevant role in international negotiations on NTCs such as climate change, energy, and culture, among others. While China is still considered a developing country, in particular from the NTCs’ point of view, it promises to be a key actor in international law in general and, more specifically, in international economic law in this respect. This volume assesses, taking into consideration its special context, China’s behavior internally and externally to understand its role and influence in shaping NTCs in the context of international economic law.