Internationaler Handel und Umweltschutz
Zielkonflikte und Ansatzpunkte des Interessenausgleichs
- Publication
- Citation
Pfahl, Stefanie 2000: Internationaler Handel und Umweltschutz. Zielkonflikte und Ansatzpunkte des Interessenausgleichs. [Beiträge zur Internationalen und Europäischen Umweltpolitik ]. Berlin: Springer.
"Trade and Environmental Protection" represents a cross-cutting issue area that must be simultaneously handled at different political levels. This book describes and analyses the institutional structures that are necessary for addressing trade and environment issues and indentifies integration strategies. In addition to being relevant to international policy-making, the topic covered in this book also reflects an area of special interest and activity at Ecologic.
Since the 1990s, the interaction and the conflict between environmental protection, international trade policy and trade liberalisation have been the subjects of intensive discussion among experts. The World Trade Organization (WTO) became a household name following the violent protests during the ministerial conference in Seattle in 1999, which erupted in response to the fear that national environmental protection standards would be reduced by the furthering of international trade liberalisation. This book analyses the conflict between the world trade system and the WTO and enviromental policy initiatives on three different levels: the conceptual, intergovernmental and the organisational.
In addition to identifying those political and the institutional structures which interfere with the integration of environmental protection in the multilateral trade regime, the book also discusses future strategies for balancing intrerests and integrating environmental protection in the WTO agenda.