Assessing The Environmental Effects Of Trade Liberalisation Agreements Methodologies

This conference proceedings examines how to assess the environmental effects of trade liberalisation agreements.

Trade liberalization, as promoted by the World Trade Organization (WTO), has become one of the dominant drivers and most controversial aspects of globalization. Trade sustainability impact assessments (SIAs) were introduced as a means of generating better understanding especially of the social and environmental impacts of trade liberalisation, and of making those impacts more consistent with sustainable development. This book takes a hard look at the experience of Trade SIAs to date, and the extent to which they have achieved their objectives and improved the outcomes of trade negotiations. It proposes several ways in which Trade SIAs could be made more effective, and illustrates these in respect of controversial sectors in which trade liberalisation has been implemented or proposed, including commodities, services and investment. Finally the book makes proposals beyond SIA through which some of the conflicts between trade liberalization and sustainable development could be more effectively addressed. Written by top researchers and experts on trade SIAs, this book is vital for researchers, academics, post-graduate students and policy makers working on any aspect of impact assessment, international trade or globalisation more generally. In addition, the book will provide a particularly useful background for those considering how the environment and trade interrelate at both global and regional levels, with some particular insights on climate change and trade policies.

This work provides strategies for integrating environmental concerns into the negotiating process when multilateral trade and investment agreements are being negotiated. It also addresses unresolved questions about establishing a procedure for introducing these concerns into negotiations.

This publication displays the menu for choice of available methods to evaluate the impact of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). It caters mainly to policy makers from developing countries and aims to equip them with some economic knowledge and techniques that will enable them to conduct their own economic evaluation studies on existing or future FTAs, or to critically re-examine the results of impact assessment studies conducted by others, at the very least.

Reference tool to facilitate broader understanding and awareness of relationship between environment and trade which can then become the basis on which fair and environmentally sustainable policies and trade flows are built.

This title was first published in 2002: Focusing on the central issues of the contemporary trade-environment-social cohesion debate, this compelling book analyzes the social and environmental impacts of existing trade liberalization through the World Trade Organization (WTO), North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and other key regimes. It also explores new strategies for regulation and risk assessment, environmental information, standard setting, voluntary activities, sustainability assessments of trade agreements, and participation by civil society. Features include: -suggests ways in which the NAFTA model might be improved -explores the NAFTA regime with regards to its environmental and social impacts -evaluates the experience and improvement of NAFTA and how it might assist the broader international community Characterized by its meticulous scholarship and fluid style, this authoritative work is an indispensable guide for all those concerned with trade liberalization, environmental enhancement and social cohesion.