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Climate change is increasingly becoming a key political issue in countries around the world, particularly in the run up to this November’s crucial international climate change conference (COP26). Our latest news analysis explores the effects, if any, that the focus on environmental protection has had on trade agreements. 

The World Trade Organisation (WTO), which regulates international trade, provides scope for its members to implement environmental protection measures provided they do not fall foul of even-handedness requirements. These sorts of measures have been used before in international, regional and bilateral agreements to address specific domestic environmental concerns such as hazardous substances, as well as concerns about the ‘global commons’ such as marine life. As countries work to reduce their carbon emissions, could carbon reduction measures be utilised to deter trade in goods with high carbon footprints?

In the latest addition to our News Analysis series on COP26, , an international trade law and policy expert in Geneva who has served as trade law counsel and diplomat with the government of Canada and advised Canadian negotiating delegations in multilateral environmental negotiations, provides his analysis on the treatment of environmental provisions in international trade agreements, how the legal framework for such provisions has evolved at bilateral and regional levels, and recent trends in trade agreement provisions.  

Read the full article here: Greening Trade—environmental complementarity in new trade initiatives.

More information on environment can be found here.

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