Enviroment and International Trage Negotiation

This book is the first assessment of the trade and environment debate as viewed by a team of researchers in developing countries. It covers international negotiations on the environment and analyses how these affect developing country concerns. It takes two sectors of crucial interest to developing countries - forestry and agriculture - and dissects the trade and environment linkages. It then reviews the contribution made by the North American Trade Agreement to environmental management in Mexico and the value added by Mercado Comun del Sur (Mercosur) and the Association for South-East Asian Nations (Asean), two developing country integration schemes, to the protection of the environment in member countries. A case-study on South Africa surveys exporters' concerns with environmentally motivated measures in international markets and another chapter reviews the contribution of voluntary market initiatives, such as ecolabelling and international standards. As a summary of the current situation, the editor concludes that the existing lack of structural coherence does not 'loop' developing countries into environmental management, and that a new organizational configuration is required to get them back in the 'loop'.