IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/glenvp/v2y2002i1p12-18.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Turtles and Trade: The WTO's Acceptance of Environmental Trade Restrictions

Author

Listed:
  • Elizabeth R. DeSombre
  • J. Samuel Barkin

Abstract

The sea turtle has become an icon ofenvironmentalist opposition to the World Trade Organization. Two decisions by the WTO in 1998 against a United States law intended to force other countries to adopt more turtle-friendly rules attracted widespread attention. A third decision in 2001 which supported the US law, however, went almost entirely unnoticed. A closer examination ofthe three decisions suggests that the WTO willingly accepts the idea ofenvironmental restrictions to international trade applied unilaterally by countries. But it requires that the restrictions be fairly applied and nondiscriminatory, show signs of being effective, and be accompanied by efforts to deal with the environmental issue cooperatively. These are all requirements that environmentalists should find unobjectionable. As such, the cause of more effective international environmental management might better be served ifenvironmental activists and NGOs worked with the WTO rather than reacting automatically against it. Copyright (c) 2002 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Suggested Citation

  • Elizabeth R. DeSombre & J. Samuel Barkin, 2002. "Turtles and Trade: The WTO's Acceptance of Environmental Trade Restrictions," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 2(1), pages 12-18, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:glenvp:v:2:y:2002:i:1:p:12-18
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1162/152638002317261445
    File Function: link to full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Millimet, Daniel L. & Tchernis, Rusty, 2009. "On the Specification of Propensity Scores, With Applications to the Analysis of Trade Policies," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 27(3), pages 397-415.
    2. Scott Moore & Dale Squires, 2016. "Governing the Depths: Conceptualizing the Politics of Deep Sea Resources," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 16(2), pages 101-109, May.
    3. Tana Johnson, 2015. "Information revelation and structural supremacy: The World Trade Organization’s incorporation of environmental policy," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 10(2), pages 207-229, June.
    4. Johannes Urpelainen, 2011. "A California Effect for International Environmental Externalities?," International Interactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(2), pages 170-189, April.
    5. Doerr, Eva Maria, 2012. "Wandel oder Kontinuität: Ein kritischer Beitrag zur Diskussion um handelsrestriktive Umweltmaßnahmen im Rahmen der WTO," PIPE - Papers on International Political Economy 12/2012, Free University Berlin, Center for International Political Economy.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tpr:glenvp:v:2:y:2002:i:1:p:12-18. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kelly McDougall (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://direct.mit.edu/journals .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.