Introduction

International trade and environmental issues have become entwined over the last several decades, largely due a continued concern with the effects of economic activities on the quality of the environment.1 In the 1980s and 90s some environmentalists began to focus on the impacts of international trade on the environment and began to oppose policies to expand trade and/or agitate for including provisions to protect the environment in trade agreements. One result was the inclusion of environmental provisions in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) together with negotiation of an extensive environmental side agreement.2 These concerns also led to actions to placate environmentalists in the ongoing negotiations of the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Although no additional environmental provisions were included in the Uruguay Round GATT agreements, environmental concerns did become a part of the World Trade Organization (WTO), established by the Uruguay Round agreements, with the creation of a permanent Committee on Trade and the Environment (CTE). Environmental provisions have been included in many of the free-trade agreements negotiated since NAFTA and are included in the Doha Round of WTO negotiations.