Introduction

The Doha Declaration addresses the issue of ‘Trade and the Environment’ in paragraph 31, which states as follows:

1. (i) [The] relationship between existing WTO rules and specific trade obligations set out in multilateral environmental agreements, negotiations limited in scope to the applicability of such existing WTO rules as among parties in question. The negotiations shall not prejudice the WTO rights of any Member that is not a party to the MEA in question.

2. (ii) Procedures for regular information exchange between MEA Secretariats and the relevant WTO committees, and the criteria for granting of observer status.

3. (iii) The reduction or, as appropriate, elimination of tariff and non-tariff barriers to environmental goods and services.

To the disappointment of many of the experts in the field, the Declaration has defined the scope of negotiation so narrowly by limiting to the relationship between WTO and MEAs (multilateral environmental agreements) only in such cases where the countries concerned are parties to both WTO and MEA. In other words, the paragraph does not cover the cases where one of the countries is not a party to a MEA, such as the United States or Australia in relation to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

Nonetheless, it would be a great step forward if the Doha Round successfully reaches an agreement in formulating a viable scheme for the coordination between trade rules and the rules for the environment even in a limited way, since it will certainly have a favourable effect on resolving the issues, perhaps by way of analogy, among the WTO members involving non-parties to a MEA.