ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
The WTO is certainly an easy target for environmentalists, both activist
and academic. As a symbol of globalisation, free trade and corporate inter-
ests, and with very limited environmental NGO participation in its decision-
making processes (Mason 2004 ), it has proved a mobilising force for environ-
mental activists, most notably when the WTO talks in Seattle were disrupted
in 1999. Many academics have condemned the WTO for its negative impact
on the environment (Conca 2000 ;Williams 2001 ;Eckersley2004b; Thomas
2004 ,inter alia). Yet, as several commentators have suggested (DeSombre and
Barkin 2002 ;Neumayer 2004 ), the past record of the WTO is in some respects
unfairly criticised. Perhaps the absence of stringent environmental measures
should be blamed on the callowness of national governments rather than
on WTO rules (Neumayer 2004 : 5)? Young ( 2005 ), noting how few formal
challenges are made to WTO rules, argues that by exaggerating the power
of the WTO, environmental and consumer activists do harm to the very
regulations that they favour, by dissuading governments from making a
challenge.
However, the WTO itself has done little to promote environmental protec-
tion. Significantly, it is reluctant to incorporate the precautionary principle
(Neumayer 2004 : 5–6; Brack 2005 : 7–8). Currently, only one WTO agreement,
on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, contains refer-
ence to the precautionary principle. Even this agreement only allows trade
restrictions based on the precautionary principle to be provisional, which
effectively ignores the possibility of persistent, or at least long-term, scien-
tific uncertainty on issues such as the environmental or health impact of
GM products. Indeed, the onus is on the member state(s) to ‘prove’, with the
help of risk assessment (see Chapter11), the existence of a danger, which,
given the nature of uncertainty, seems very difficult to do (Neumayer 2004 :
6). Consequently, the disputes procedure has found against the EU’s import
ban on beef treated with hormones (although the EU continued the ban and
accepted the retaliatory trade sanctions allowed by the WTO) and in 2006
it backed the US complaint against the EU’s ‘moratorium’ on the import
of GM foods (see Box7. 6). This decision exacerbated political tensions with
theEU, where public resistance to GM foods remains strong, and with the
developing world, because it will help US GM companies gain access to their
markets, thereby strengthening the widespread view that the WTO supports
the interests of the developed world, especially the USA.
The prospects for any fundamental reform of WTO rules regarding the
environment seem slim. At the time of writing, the ongoing Doha round
of trade negotiations had stalled over the reform of agricultural subsidies,
which inflict major harm on the environment. Although the MEA/WTO ten-
sion is on the Doha agenda, it has a low priority. Moreover, the bottom-line
is that the member states will not agree on reform. The developing world
is deeply suspicious of the environmental agenda, regarding it as an excuse
for Northernprotectionism; the developed world is split on key issues,
notably the unwillingness of the USA to endorse MEAs that incorporate the