The Legitimacy of Trade Measures for Environmental Protection

환경보호(環境保護)를 위한 국제통상규제(國際通商規制)의 합법성(合法性)

Trade and the environment emerged as a major and complex issue for trade negotiators in the final stages of the Uruguay Round negotiations. The agreements and other international measures employing trade measures and trade sanctions for achieving global environmental objectives are Vienna Convention on the Protection of the Ozone Layer(1985), the Montreal Protocol on Substances that deplete the Ozone Layer(1987), The Framework Convention on Climate Change(1992), the Convention on Biological Diversity(1992), the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Waste and their Disposal(1992), the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Faunna and Flora(1975), the Rio Declaration, the Agenda 21, etc. The texts of the World Trade Organization(WTO) incorporated certain provisions which were designed to reflect some of the environmental concerns are Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Properity Rights(TRIPs), Trade-Related Investment Measures (TRIMs), the General Agreement on Trade in Services(GATS), and Technical Barriers to Trade(TBT) There is the possibility of conflict between multilateral environmental agreements and WTO agreements granting waivers against trade measures and sanctions. This remains a possibility, especially between countries which are Member of WTO and which are not Members of the relevant multilateral environment agreements, and countries which are Members of both the WTO and the relevant MEAs. Measures taken under the trade-related provisions of MEAs could potentially give rise to conflicts under obligations arising in WTO texts. If the parties in dispute are WTO members while they are not members of MEAs, the WTO provisions can be granted a certain priority in terms of international norms and vice versa. When the parties concerned are both WTO members and MEAs, it will be rational to grant the WTO provisions a priority. However, such measures should neither constitute a means of arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination between countries where similar conditions prevail, nor create a disguised restriction on trade. Also any trade measures taken should be necessary to prevent developments in trade from endangering the effectiveness of an MEA and they should be proportional and least trade restrictive.