Trade and environment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Trade and environment - Essay Example Rules formed by one party can frustrate the other in fact there is an existing fear that trade rules may be frustrating the environmental ones. This essay focuses on the question whether trade rules override the environmental ones. The non-discrimination principle by WTO may not favorable to restrictions that may be imposed by environmental rules. The principle requires countries to offer equal treatment to products that are alike imported from any WTO member country. If in a certain region the trade of such a product poses a threat to the environment, then terms of trade are likely to change once such a region is faced with environmental rules. To some extent the WTO is considered superior based on its scope of coverage, this has left the negotiations on the trade and environmental rules to be narrowed down to only the WTO members that have signed the Multilateral Environmental Agreement under consideration. Further the majority MEA secretariats have been granted ‘observership’ in the trade and environment committee and some attend the committee’s negotiation sessions by invitation. (Frankel, Jeffrey 2008). This may be attributed to the fact that there is no such a thing as an empowered global environmental body spearheading their concerns to their trade partners on issues that affect them. The benefits of trade which majorly includes steering economic growth, together with technology transfer and promoting competition outweigh the danger of adverse effects to the environment. It is also notable that trade may lead to environmental improvements, but it may also make states or firms to seek gaining advantage over their competitors by observing lower environmental standards. To many environmentalists this poses a potential source of conflict between trade and environmental rules and presents a hindrance to the goals that they want to achieve noting the climatic changes we