Brazil is currently immersed in the project of building a new common market, known as MERCOSUR, with its neighbors Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. It has largely been assumed that this project will produce economic growth and therefore be beneficial for the environment. However, this assumption has recently come into question, as a result of Brazilian and Argentinean efforts to regulate the environmental and health risks associated with retreaded tire imports. Despite the protests of environmentalists, MERCOSUR and WTO tribunals have now issued three separate decisions finding that these measures violate international trade rules. This dissertation examines whether these decisions were correctly decided in light of the relevant scholarly literature on the relationship between trade liberalization and environmental protection, and on regulatory competition theory. I argue that the test applied by WTO and MERCOSUR panels in trade and environment disputes gives insufficient weight to the lessons learned from this literature, and that future panels should adopt a new approach that explicitly draws on these lessons. I then attempt to apply this new approach to the retreaded tire dispute, based on my own examination of the relevant economic and scientific data, and individual interviews I conducted with representatives of the Brazilian government, the Brazilian tire industry, and MERCOSUR.

Methods of reusing/recycling the more than 250 million automobile and truck tires which are worn out each year were investigated. The existing methods of reusing tires account for about 30 percent of the volume of scrap tires generated each year. These methods are, Retreading, Reclaiming (by reducing to ground up rubber and fiber), and Tire Splitting (stamp items out of sidewall and tread areas). Several possibilities for reusing/recycling the unused 70 percent were discovered. These methods are as follows: Destructive Distillation -- a method of recovering chemicals from tires by pyrolitic action. It is anticipated that eventually as much as 60 percent of all scrap tires may be reused by this method. Expanded Reclaimed Usage -- The use of crumb rubber as an asphalt additive will improve life and durability of highway paving as much as 300 percent. Artificial Reefs -- The tires are compressed and banded then dumped in the ocean to expand old or create new reefs. Carbon Black -- A method whereby the tire is carburized and the resulting carbon black used in new tire formulation. An investigation of the possibility of using one or more of the above methods for the East Central Florida area indicates that artificial reefs should provide the most useful, least cost method for disposal of scrap tires.

published_or_final_version / Environmental Management / Master / Master of Science in Environmental Management

published_or_final_version / Environmental Management / Master / Master of Science in Environmental Management