Globalisation, trade and the environmentpoorly thought through and inappropriate tools for the environmental man-
agement intended’ (p. 18).
Significantly, subsequent WTO decisions, notably the final outcome of
theshrimp–turtle dispute, appear to have ‘changed things fundamentally’
(Neumayer 2004 : 2). This case involved a US embargo on imports of shrimp
caught by methods that killed endangered species of sea turtles, i.e. because
of the process and production method. The disputes panel initially found
against the USA in 1998, on the grounds that the rules were applied in a
discriminatory way and were too rigid. However, in 2001 the appellate body
found in favour of the USA, ruling that regulations aimed at the process
and production methodareadmissible under WTO rules, providing they are
applied justly and in a non-arbitrary manner. The panel was sympathetic to
the USreformoftheoriginal law so that shrimp imports were allowed on
ashipment-by-shipment basis, providing it could be shown that the shrimp
had been caught in ways that did no harm to turtles, even if the shipments
came from countries, such as Malaysia, that could not provide assurances
that all shrimp was caught in this way. This finding has potentially sig-
nificant implications for the development of regulations directed at trans-
boundary environmental problems, a development that not every environ-
mentalist opponent of free trade has acknowledged (DeSombre and Barkin
2002 ).
Another central area of dispute in the trade–environment debate con-
cerns the relationship between WTO rules and international environmental
regimes. Of approximately two hundred MEAs about twenty of the most
significant contain trade-restrictive measures that address transboundary
ecological problems (Eckersley2004b: 27). The ozone treaty, for example,
imposes stringent restrictions on trade in ozone-depleting substances and
products (such as refrigerators and aerosols) that contain them. Such restric-
tions appear to flout various WTO rules, particularly where different restric-
tions are applied to parties and to non-parties to the agreement. To date,
this tension is theoretical insofar as no cases have arisen that challenge an
MEA for contravening WTO rules, which may be evidence of WTO members
showing sensible restraint (Neumayer 2004 : 4). But it may only be a matter
of time before a challenge emerges, particularly as several countries, notably
theUSA, have refused to ratify various key MEAs, including the Kyoto and
Cartagena Protocols. Yet the relative status of the two sets of rules remains
ambiguous. Moreover, commentators such as Eckersley (2004b)argue that
the awareness of a possible WTO challenge to an MEA has resulted in a con-
servative implementation of existing MEA trade restrictions and is having
a‘chilling’ effect on ongoing multilateral negotiations. It is acknowledged
on all sides that this tension between the WTO rules and MEAs needs to
be resolved. When the WTO was created, a Committee on Trade and the
Environment was established to review the relationship between trade rules
and the environment, but over ten years on, it has still not produced any
conclusive decisions (Eckersley2004b;Brack 2005 :7;seealsoWilliams 2001 ).