Greening WTO Agreements to stop Climate Warming

Raymond Saner, 5th July 2013

Radical new approaches are urgently needed to reverse climate warming and to prevent the world from committing “ecocide” through environmental destruction. The radical new solutions proposed in this policy study go beyond the incremental change of current policy practice and instead suggest the need for a discontinuous change as the only means of halting the pervasive “tinkering along” approach of mainstream policy making which have not been able to bring about a halt to climate warming. This policy paper assesses the various attempts of state and non-state actors to cope with climate change and argues that a radically new approach is needed within the WTO agreements to generate solutions that have sufficient weight and treaty power to bring about a new and credible approach towards halting and reversing of climate warming.

Building on previous analysis and recommendations, this policy study discusses the interface between multilateral agreements on trade and on climate change and suggests that the WTO is the only multilateral institution which can effectively generate legal constraints and political will to stop climate warming. This policy study proposes an intra-regime solution within the WTO agreement in order to elicit the green investments and green production needed to successfully implement climate change mitigation and adaptation.

 

The following questions are addressed by this policy study: Which are the international economic governance options to effectively stop climate warming? Which are the main disciplines within the WTO Agreements addressing environment, trade, investment and intellectual property? What can be changed within the WTO Agreements to foster a green economy in developed and developing countries? What does the WTO case law say about disputes involving environment, trade, and investment?

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