Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of abbreviations and acronyms
- List of contributors
- 1 An overview: options for global trade reform – a view from the Asia-Pacific
- 2 Agriculture and the Doha Development Agenda
- 3 Liberalizing trade in manufactures
- 4 Returning textiles and clothing to GATT disciplines
- 5 Approaches to further liberalization of trade in services
- 6 Liberalization of air transport services
- 7 Liberalization of maritime transport services
- 8 International trade in telecoms services
- 9 East Asia and options for negotiations on investment
- 10 Competition policy, developing countries, and the World Trade Organization
- 11 The long and winding road to the Government Procurement Agreement: Korea's accession experience
- 12 Trade facilitation in the World Trade Organization: Singapore to Doha and beyond
- 13 Trade, the environment, and labor: text, institutions, and context
- Index
- References
13 - Trade, the environment, and labor: text, institutions, and context
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of abbreviations and acronyms
- List of contributors
- 1 An overview: options for global trade reform – a view from the Asia-Pacific
- 2 Agriculture and the Doha Development Agenda
- 3 Liberalizing trade in manufactures
- 4 Returning textiles and clothing to GATT disciplines
- 5 Approaches to further liberalization of trade in services
- 6 Liberalization of air transport services
- 7 Liberalization of maritime transport services
- 8 International trade in telecoms services
- 9 East Asia and options for negotiations on investment
- 10 Competition policy, developing countries, and the World Trade Organization
- 11 The long and winding road to the Government Procurement Agreement: Korea's accession experience
- 12 Trade facilitation in the World Trade Organization: Singapore to Doha and beyond
- 13 Trade, the environment, and labor: text, institutions, and context
- Index
- References
Summary
Progress at last
The November 2001 Doha Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) reached agreement on negotiations on trade and the environment in several specific areas. These areas included the relationship between WTO rules and specific trade obligations in multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs), information exchanges with MEA secretariats, and reductions in tariffs on environmental goods. The work program will also seek to identify win–win situations in which reductions in trade barriers would benefit trade and the environment, and to examine labeling requirements for environmental purposes. Trade and labor standards received relatively little attention, with the meeting reaffirming an agreement reached in 1996.
By contrast, labor and environmental issues were much more controversial at the 1999 Ministerial Meeting in Seattle. This was dramatically disrupted by street protests questioning the pace and direction of globalization and free trade, which were seen as embodied by the WTO. The largest core of protesters at Seattle was labor unions and environmentalists. Despite the existence of the WTO Committee on Trade and Environment (CTE), labor and environmental issues have been considered outside the purview of the WTO, or at most a minor concern, and thus the protests came as a surprise to trade officials.
In the 1996 Singapore Ministerial, discussion over the report of the CTE was held hostage to discussions over agriculture. Debate on the CTE report and the underlying trade–environment issues were not, in the end, linked.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Options for Global Trade ReformA View from the Asia-Pacific, pp. 280 - 305Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003
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