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<p>There is an existing conflict between trade and environmental policies. There are different opinions and attitudes in the relation between free trade and environmental protection. Free trade regards environmental factors as part of the comparative advantages that one country may have over another. However, many environmentalists are critical about trade liberalization. The scope of this paper was limited to the interaction between international free trade and the environmental protection. The main objectives of this study was to examine the interaction between trade(free trade) and environment and to analyse the areas of conflict between free trade under the World Trade Organization and environmental protection.</p>

Liberalising trade is not limited to diminishing trade barriers or decreasing tariffs rates, but also ensuring that these efforts are maintained: this is the role of competition rules. / It is common knowledge that for decades Countries have been trying to agree on international harmonised competition rules. Aware of this interaction between trade and competition policies, they knew efforts had to be undertaken to make them co-exist. Unfortunately the dream never came true. And parties only inherited rules of competition hardly recognised, or implicitly applied within the International Trade Law Framework. Even if some implicit rules of competition have been 'injected' in some of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade provisions in the early 1950's, it is only the new 1994 World Trade Organisation Agreements that have consecrated this orientation, drafted so to discipline the Parties as for competition-related behaviour; even if by definition WTO Agreements were not competition agreements. / Far from the debate of their potential harmonisation, the thesis identifies these rules, analyses their evolution within time and their very application through the study of WTO cases. It will establish that the emergence of a competition jurisprudence is an undeniable reality.

The manipulation of nature using modern biotechnology has resulted in the creation of Genetically Modified (GM) foods. There are states already enacting laws requiring the mandatory labeling of GM foods so that consumers can make informed choices as to what food to eat. However, on the flip side, the mandatory labeling of GM foods can also constitute non-tariff barriers as it can impose burdens on states that export GM foods. How should these two interests be balanced? This thesis takes the ambitious challenge of exploring whether the mandatory labeling of GM foods enacted under the government's protection of the consumers' right to information regarding what food to consume is consistent with the World Trade Organization (WTO) framework, particularly the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (MT Agreement). This thesis holds the view that the WTO, an international organization established to promote trade liberalization, can incorporate protection of consumers' interests by including it within to the interpretation of "legitimate objective" contained in Article 2.2 of the TBT Agreement. Rather, the heart of problem lies in the threshold setting of exempting mandatory labeling. In particular, the dispersed threshold should be adjusted hi order to solve this issue, this thesis contends that both the TBT Committee and the dispute settlement system should be utilized.

<p>There is an existing conflict between trade and environmental policies. There are different opinions and attitudes in the relation between free trade and environmental protection. Free trade regards environmental factors as part of the comparative advantages that one country may have over another. However, many environmentalists are critical about trade liberalization. The scope of this paper was limited to the interaction between international free trade and the environmental protection. The main objectives of this study was to examine the interaction between trade(free trade) and environment and to analyse the areas of conflict between free trade under the World Trade Organization and environmental protection.</p>

This thesis analyses the consistency of WTO law with international environmental law and general international law in the field of trade and environment. GATT obligations require trade measures to comply with national treatment (Article III) and most –favoured nation treatment (Article I) and to prohibit import and export restrictions (Article XI). GATT exceptions permit measures to protect human, animal or plant life or health (Article XX(b)) and to conserve exhaustible natural resources (Article XX(g). This thesis analyses the consistency of unilateral and multilateral environmental measures with these GATT obligations and exceptions. It argues that the Article XX exceptions should be interpreted according to the proximity of interest between the country using trade restrictions and the environmental problem. It argues further that Article XX should be interpreted in accordance with customary international law regarding sovereign equality, non-intervention and the doctrine of necessity. Applying the principle of sovereign equality to WTO rights, this thesis proposes that WTO provisions be designed and interpreted to compensate for the economic inequality of WTO members in order to ensure equal access to WTO rights. Moreover, the principle of non-intervention should be applied in the WTO context to prohibit economic coercion. Unilateral environmental trade restrictions fail both tests. They use economic coercion to intervene in the internal affairs of sovereign States and are available in practice only to countries with significant market power. However, the doctrine of necessity may be invoked to excuse the non-observance of WTO and other international obligations to permit the use of trade restrictions to address urgent environmental problems with which the enacting country has a jurisdictional nexus.

Proefschrift Universiteit van Amsterdam. / Met index, lit. opg. - Met samenvatting in het Nederlands.

Zugl.: Hohenheim, University, Diss., 2005.

Zugl.: Saarbrücken, Univ., Diss., 2005

Assignment (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.