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Gomula, Joanna --- "Environmental Disputes in the WTO" [2010] ELECD 607; in Fitzmaurice, Malgosia; Ong, M. David; Merkouris, Panos (eds), "Research Handbook on International Environmental Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: Research Handbook on International Environmental Law

Editor(s): Fitzmaurice, Malgosia; Ong, M. David; Merkouris, Panos

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847201249

Section: Chapter 19

Section Title: Environmental Disputes in the WTO

Author(s): Gomula, Joanna

Number of pages: 25

Extract:

19 Environmental disputes in the WTO
Joanna Gomula



Introduction
The relationship between `free trade' of goods (and services) and environmental protection is
often presented in terms of a `clash' or `conflict'. There is indeed, at first sight, an underly-
ing conflict between the two notions themselves. The notion of free trade puts an emphasis
on freedom: freedom to trade (goods and services), to maintain and develop trade relations,
to structure trade transactions in the most efficient and unrestricted manner from the traders'
point of view. The notion of environmental protection puts an emphasis on protection, which
implies the existence of restrictions designed to ensure the achievement of the designated
objectives. In other words, `to protect' means taking action, or refraining from action, that is
necessary to preserve specific values, which merit such limitation of the freedom to act. This
notional conflict may be at the root of occasional suggestions that freedom of trade cannot be
reconciled with environmental protection.
In fact, however, there is no such reality as `free' trade. The major multilateral trade
regimes, which are often quoted as examples of freedom of trade (and which sometimes even
have the word `freedom' in their official names), constitute sets of rules that restrict, through
regulations, trade-related actions, with a view to facilitating trade, but not with a view to
completely removing all obstacles. The World Trade Organization (WTO) and the North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) prescribe rules that make trade among their
respective members `free' only to the ...