While it is common to oppose trade objectives to environmental concerns, it is equally common to oppose multilateralism to bilateralism. However, these dichotomies are not inevitable. Bilateral trade agreements can serve the purpose of multilateral environmental agreements.
Tag: Case stories: Agreements
Recently, the European Union (EU) announced that all its future preferential trade agreements (PTAs) need to include a reference to the ratification and implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement, starting with the trade agreement concluded last year between the EU and Japan. Indeed, the EU-Japan Economic Partnership includes a reaffirmation of the commitment to implement […]
Pundits frequently oppose US and EU models for dealing with the environment. The former is said to promote an evidence-based approach while the latter privileges a precautionary approach. Yet, as the TREND dataset reveals , opposing the US and the EU models can be a misleading caricature.
The 2016 Comprehensive and Economic Trade Agreement between Canada and the European Union (CETA) and the 2016 Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) are two recent trade agreements that include several environmental provisions. Moreover, both CETA and the TPP were innovative in that they include new provisions not found in previous agreements. CETA is the very first […]
The rising number of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) covers an ever-broader array of policy areas, going far beyond the traditional reduction of tariffs. For example, such trade agreements include provisions on investment, intellectual property, labour rights and environmental protection. While environmental aspects have only been tentatively included in WTO negotiations thus far, numerous bilateral and […]