Principle 12: The Environment and Trade

Abstract

Principle 12 of the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development contains aspirations for the role of trade policy in an open international economic system leading to sustainable development. Paradoxically, Principle 12 goes further than trade law disciplines in suggesting that countries should avoid trade measures dealing with environmental challenges outside their jurisdiction. This chapter argues that Principle 12 failed to accommodate some of the known and emerging sensitivities surrounding the relationship between trade measures and environment protection, and has been largely overtaken by subsequent jurisprudential and normative developments in a range of fora such as the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization.

Keywords: Trade and environment, trade policy, non-discrimination, extra-territoriality, unilateral trade measures, Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1947 (GATT), Multilateral Environment Agreements (MEAs), transboundary or global environmental problems

JEL Classification: K00, K33