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Picking the Wrong Fight: Why Attacks on the World Trade Organization Pose the Real Threat to National Environmental and Public Health Protection

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  • Alasdair R. Young

Abstract

A principal reason for popular concern about the World Trade Organisation is that national rules-especially those for environmental and public health pro-tection-may be overturned because they are incompatible with the WTO's rules. This article argues that while these concerns are not totally unfounded, they are exaggerated. A central reason for this exaggeration is that environmental and consumer advocates discount the pivotal role of governments in the dispute resolution process. Governments agree to the multilateral rules in the first place. Governments decide which market access barriers to pursue and how aggressively. Governments determine how to comply with a WTO judgment that goes against them. Furthermore, this article contends that by exaggerating the constraint imposed upon national governments by the WTO, consumer and environmental advocates run the risk of actually discouraging the very environmental and public health regulations they favor. Copyright (c) 2005 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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  • Alasdair R. Young, 2005. "Picking the Wrong Fight: Why Attacks on the World Trade Organization Pose the Real Threat to National Environmental and Public Health Protection," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 5(4), pages 47-72, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:glenvp:v:5:y:2005:i:4:p:47-72
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    Cited by:

    1. Noémie Laurens & Jean-Frédéric Morin, 2019. "Negotiating environmental protection in trade agreements: A regime shift or a tactical linkage?," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 19(6), pages 533-556, December.
    2. 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.
    3. Fanny Verrax, 2014. "Governance of mineral resources : Towards the end of national states’ supremacy?," Post-Print hal-04346341, HAL.

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