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Southern Agenda on Trade & Environment

A project aimed at helping developing countries to determine priorities for promoting and negotiating proactive positions that reflect their own 'Southern Agenda' on environment and trade in the multilateral trading system.

Southern Agenda Home I Project Outputs I Regional Consultations

Think Pieces

  • Arab Think Piece. By Carol Chouchani Cherfane and Karim Makdisi - September 2005
    • This paper takes a critical approach to examining the particular trade and environment context in the Arab region. It first examines the trends that will define sustainability in the region and influence the formulation of national development strategies over the coming years, and argues that the ability of countries to adopt and implement integrated and mutually-supportive trade and environmental policies will be central to efforts seeking to reverse or reign in unsustainable development trends while taking advantage of the opportunities presented by increasing globalization. However, it stresses that continuing cost of environmental degradation, unsustainable consumption patterns, and the huge gap between official declarations and policies (in terms of trade liberalization and sustainable development) and their implementation, coupled with the lack of effective regional integration and public participation in decision-making are serious challenges that must be addressed. The chapter then traces the evolution of trade and environment policy-making in the region from one with a narrow, WTO-focused agenda to one increasingly placed, on the surface at least, within the framework of sustainable development. It then analyzes the enabling environment within which inter-dependency between trade and environment is addressed, namely governance, negotiation strategies, policy analysis, capacity building, as well as mechanisms to increase private sector participation.
  • Caribbean Think Piece: Interests of The Caribbean Community In Trade-Related Environmental Issues: Some Considerations. By Taimoon Stewart - July 2005
    • This paper attempts to address the current issues in the trade and environment debate and the ongoing negotiations in the Doha Development agenda from the point of view of the small vulnerable economies of the Caribbean Community. A brief profile of CARICOM economies is provided to demonstrate smallness and vulnerability, and to illustrate the effects of these features on policy response. The importance of environmental issues for both economic development and sheer survival of these states is underscored. The paper then examines the major issues addressed in the global arena on trade and environment, including the WTO, for impact on these economies, and offers recommendations that could assist policy makers and negotiators on these issues.
  • Mesoamerica Think Piece: Redesigning the World's Trading System for Sustainable Development. By Alejandro Nadal - March 2005
    • This paper argues that reducing trade barriers is not an end in itself but a means towards sustainability and development. Existing trade agreements and current negotiations should be carefully evaluated and implementation problems solved. Developing coutnries should carry out their own assessment to ensure that the WTO is subordinated to the overarching objectives of sustainable development. The paper presents reforms needed in the world trading system based upon a consideration of environmental, economic and social issues. The relationship between macroeconomic and trade policies, the regulatory regime for agricultural trade, international commodity agreements, intellectual property and investment rights are some of the issues discussed.
  • Southern/Eastern Africa: An Alternative Environment and Development Vision for Southern and Eastern Africa. By Yash Tadon, DRAFT - February 2005
    • This paper reviews the history of international sustainable development and environmental initiatives, analysing how the balance between environmental and trade concerns has changed since 1970. It concludes that the current model of globalisation is untenable, provides examples of viable better options, and highlights a way forward for developing countries to join together to ensure that their interests are taken into account.
  • South/Southeast Asia: What To Do About the Debate on Trade and the Environment: Global Governance, Southern Perspectives and Snipping the Gordian Knot. By Simon Tay, DRAFT - January 2004.
    • This paper argues that developing countries should respond to trade and environment issues and seek to develop a positive agenda to minimize the possibilities of being victims of trade protectionism and increase the prospects of benefiting from giving due and appropriate attention to environmental issues in the trade context. An analysis of three major debates that underscore the main concerns is also offered, grouping the various trade-environment issues within three broader clusters of economic spillovers and competitiveness, unilateralism and compulsion, and moral spillovers. The paper also suggests (1) that greater attention be given to trade and environment issues in regional and bilateral trade arrangements; (2) that as nations open up their markets, each must be encouraged and assisted in undertaking systemic and detailed analysis at a national level to understand the linkages between trade and environment for their economic and ecological concerns; and (3) that, at the WTO, policy processes, dialogues and cooperation are needed to lessen the controversies over unilateral compulsion and negative sanctions that attach to trade and environment issue.
  • South America Think Piece: Trade and Environment Negotiations: A Southern View. By Pedro da Motta Veiga, DRAFT - October 2003
    • This paper aims to present the elements of a negotiating agenda for the "trade-environment" theme to be dealt with on the multilateral level. It takes as its starting point the presupposition that a merely negative attitude is no longer sustainable and that furthermore, it is no longer in the interests of the developing countries. A review of trade negotiations in this field, an analysis of the critical questions and elements of a proposed agenda for negotiations are included

Background Papers

Final Meeting Reports

Phase I Synoptic Tables

Other Documents
 

© ICTSD 2004 - Last Update: 11-Sep-2007