Summary and Outlook

The last two decades have been characterized by the proliferation of regional and bilateral trade agreements with the basic objective of reducing barriers to trade between the member parties of the agreements. The process has accelerated with the failure of the multilateral Doha Round of negotiations to reach agreement. Since the pioneering effort by the NAFTA negotiations to include other issues in both the main FTA and corresponding side agreements, the inclusion of environmental provisions in FTAs has become fairly typical. The incorporation of environmental issues in the NAFTA agreement was a necessary concession to environmentalists to help pave the way for ratification of the agreement, since there was widespread opposition to a trade agreement with Mexico based on fears of a race to the bottom and job losses in the case of both the labor and environmental provisions. During this time period, the early 1990s, the Uruguay Round of the GATT negotiations was also being concluded and led to concessions as well, although not in the GATT agreements except for an objective; instead a permanent Committee on Trade and Environment (CTE) was created, helping to establish environmental issues in trade regimes and making them integral in the newly created World Trade Organization (WTO) and subsequent Doha Round of multilateral negotiations.