World Trade Organization

International trade rules have significant impacts on environmental law and policy, at the domestic, regional and global levels. At the World Trade Organization (WTO), dispute settlement tribunals are increasingly called to decide on environment- and health-related questions. Can governments treat products differently based on environmental considerations? Can they block the import of highly carcinogenic asbestos-containing products or genetically modified crops?

How can the poorer countries of the world be helped to help themselves through freer, fairer trade? This book suggests a radical and realistic new model for managing trading relationships between the richest and the poorest countries. The approach is designed to open up markets in the interests of all and not just the most powerful economies, to ensure that trade promotes development, and to minimise the costs of adjustments.

This comprehensive resource manual explains why and how the reform of fisheries subsidies has become one of the most important international efforts to achieve global, environmental, economic and developmental policy coherence. It provides a historic overview, synthesis and analysis of key issues regarding fisheries subsidies reform and the current development of fisheries subsidies negotiations at the WTO.