Trade and Environment Review 2006


Book Description

This report examines the relationship between environmental and health related requirements and market access for developing countries. It considers the key issues involved, and identifies policy options at the national and multilateral levels to assist developing countries to strengthen capacity in order to effectively respond to the trade and development opportunities and challenges presented by these requirements in export markets. It covers both general and sectoral analyses, focusing on two sectors where environmental requirements are critical to market access, relating to electrical and electronic equipment and organic agricultural products.







Trade and Environment


Book Description




Global Environmental Protection through Trade


Book Description

Despite an increasing global awareness of environmental concerns, setting internationally binding and ambitious commitments has proven exceedingly complex. As states are seeking alternative methods to support global environmental protection, this book takes a closer look at the possibility of using national trade measures that make market access conditional on the environmental impact of the production process abroad.




International Trade and Climate Change


Book Description

Climate change remains a global challenge requiring international collaborative action. Another area where countries have successfully committed to a long-term multilateral resolution is the liberalization of international trade. Integration into the world economy has proven a powerful means for countries to promote economic growth, development, and poverty reduction. The broad objectives of the betterment of current and future human welfare are shared by both global trade and climate regimes. Yet both climate and trade agendas have evolved largely independently through the years, despite their mutually supporting objectives. Since global emission goals and global trade objectives are shared policy objectives of most countries, and nearly all of the World Bank's clients, it makes sense to consider the two sets of objectives together. This book is one of the first comprehensive attempts to look at the synergies between climate change and trade objectives from economic, legal, and institutional perspectives. It addresses an important policy question - how changes in trade policies and international cooperation on trade policies can help address global environmental spillovers, especially GHG emissions, and what the (potential) effects of (national) environmental policies that are aimed at global environmental problems might be for trade and investment. It explores opportunities for aligning development and energy policies in such a way that they could stimulate production, trade, and investment in cleaner technology options.







Sustainable Land Management


Book Description

Land is the integrating component of all livelihoods depending on farm, forest, rangeland, or water (rivers, lakes, coastal marine) habitats. Due to varying political, social, and economic factors, the heavy use of natural resources to supply a rapidly growing global population and economy has resulted in the unintended mismanagement and degradation of land and ecosystems. 'Sustainable Land Management' provides strategic focus to the implementation of sustainable land management (SLM) components of the World Bank's development strategies. SLM is a knowledge-based procedure that integrates land, water, biodiversity, and environmental management to meet rising food and fiber demands while sustaining livelihoods and the environment. This book, aimed at policy makers, project managers, and development organization, articulates priorities for investment in SLM and natural resource management and identifies the policy, institutional, and incentive reform options that will accelerate the adoption of SLM productivity improvements and pro-poor growth.




Trade and the Environment


Book Description

Nowhere has the divide between advocates and critics of globalization been more striking than in debates over free trade and the environment. And yet the literature on the subject is high on rhetoric and low on results. This book is the first to systematically investigate the subject using both economic theory and empirical analysis. Brian Copeland and Scott Taylor establish a powerful theoretical framework for examining the impact of international trade on local pollution levels, and use it to offer a uniquely integrated treatment of the links between economic growth, liberalized trade, and the environment. The results will surprise many. The authors set out the two leading theories linking international trade to environmental outcomes, develop the empirical implications, and examine their validity using data on measured sulfur dioxide concentrations from over 100 cities worldwide during the period from 1971 to 1986. The empirical results are provocative. For an average country in the sample, free trade is good for the environment. There is little evidence that developing countries will specialize in pollution-intensive products with further trade. In fact, the results suggest just the opposite: free trade will shift pollution-intensive goods production from poor countries with lax regulation to rich countries with tight regulation, thereby lowering world pollution. The results also suggest that pollution declines amid economic growth fueled by economy-wide technological progress but rises when growth is fueled by capital accumulation alone. Lucidly argued and authoritatively written, this book will provide students and researchers of international trade and environmental economics a more reliable way of thinking about this contentious issue, and the methodological tools with which to do so.




Organic Agriculture, Environment and Food Security


Book Description

Organic agriculture is defined as an environmentally and socially sensitive food supply system. This publication considers the contribution of organic agriculture to ecological health, international markets and local food security. It contains a number of case studies of the practical experiences of small farmers throughout the world (including India, Iran, Thailand, Uganda and Brazil) who have adopted fully integrated food systems, and analyses the prospects for a wider adoption of organic agriculture. The book also discusses the weakness of institutional support for nurturing existing knowledge and exchange in organic agriculture.




Research Handbook on Environment, Health and the WTO


Book Description

ÔThis edited collection brings together an impressive array of authors from the world of international trade, the environment and public health. Each of them is eminently well-placed to bring their own particular expertise to bear on the issue at hand, and to do so in a knowledgeable and stimulating manner. This Research Handbook is a must for anyone interested in these overlapping fields of law and policy whether as a basis for learning or as a resource for further research.Õ Ð Mary Footer, University of Nottingham School of Law, UK ÔThis fantastic collection of essays explores the multiple intersections between trade and environment in the WTO. The contributions by leading scholars are theoretically engaged whilst practical in their focus. It is a Òmust readÓ for those concerned to ensure that trade liberalisation does not stand in the way of sustainable development, including urgently needed action to mitigate the risks and consequences of climate change.Õ Ð Joanne Scott, University College London, UK ÔGeert Van Calster and Denise PrŽvost have managed to induce virtually all the great experts on health, environment and WTO law to contribute to their Research Handbook on these subjects. The result is undoubtedly an excellent volume that should adorn the bookcase of any and all interested in the important problem of the relation between international rule-making and regulatory autonomy of states in this area of international economic law.Õ Ð Pieter Jan Kuijper, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands This Handbook provides state-of-the-art analysis by leading authors on the links between the international trade regime and health and environment concerns Ð concerns that make up an increasing proportion of WTO dispute settlement. Research Handbook on Environment, Health and the WTO surveys fields as diverse as climate change mitigation, non-communicable diseases, nanotechnology and public health care. The volume brings to the fore the debates and complexities surrounding these issues and their implications for the international trading system. The Handbook begins in Part I with a survey of general issues that sets a context for the more specific sectorial studies. Part II considers the most pressing issues within health regulation and trade law, whilst Part III is devoted to environmental regulation and its interface with trade law. Part IV looks specifically at aspects of the dispute settlement process and in particular standard of review, and the book concludes in Part V with a consideration of the impact of trade measures on the health and environment regimes of emerging economies. This comprehensive yet concise Handbook will appeal to academics and researchers in international trade law and environmental law, as well as trade law practitioners.