Nowhere has the divide between advocates and critics of globalization been more striking than in debates over free trade and the environment. And yet the literature on the subject is high on rhetoric and low on results. This book is the first to systematically investigate the subject using both economic theory and empirical analysis. Brian Copeland and Scott Taylor establish a powerful theoretical framework for examining the impact of international trade on local pollution levels, and use it to offer a uniquely integrated treatment of the links between economic growth, liberalized trade, and the environment. The results will surprise many. The authors set out the two leading theories linking international trade to environmental outcomes, develop the empirical implications, and examine their validity using data on measured sulfur dioxide concentrations from over 100 cities worldwide during the period from 1971 to 1986. The empirical results are provocative. For an average country in the sample, free trade is good for the environment. There is little evidence that developing countries will specialize in pollution-intensive products with further trade. In fact, the results suggest just the opposite: free trade will shift pollution-intensive goods production from poor countries with lax regulation to rich countries with tight regulation, thereby lowering world pollution. The results also suggest that pollution declines amid economic growth fueled by economy-wide technological progress but rises when growth is fueled by capital accumulation alone. Lucidly argued and authoritatively written, this book will provide students and researchers of international trade and environmental economics a more reliable way of thinking about this contentious issue, and the methodological tools with which to do so.

International trade rules have significant impacts on environmental law and policy, at the domestic, regional and global levels. At the World Trade Organization (WTO), dispute settlement tribunals are increasingly called to decide on environment- and health-related questions. Can governments treat products differently based on environmental considerations? Can they block the import of highly carcinogenic asbestos-containing products or genetically modified crops? Does the WTO allow governments to protect dolphins or endangered sea turtles through the use of import restrictions on certain products? How can civil society participate in WTO dispute settlement? This Guide, authored by five world leaders on international environmental and trade law at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), is an accessible, comprehensive, one-of-a-kind compendium of environment and trade jurisprudence under the WTO. Providing an overview for both experts and non-experts of the major themes relevant to environment and trade, it also analyses how WTO tribunals have approached these themes in concrete disputes and provides selected excerpts of the most significant cases.

While trade exacerbates climate change, it is also a central part of the solution because it has the potential to enhance mitigation and adaptation. This timely report explores the different ways in which trade and climate change intersect. Trade contributes to the emissions that cause global warming and is itself also affected by climate change through changing comparative advantages. The report also confronts several myths concerning trade and climate change. The Trade and Climate Change Nexus: The Urgency and Opportunities for Developing Countries focuses on the impacts of, and adjustments to, climate change in developing countries and on how future trade opportunities will be affected by both the changing climate and the policy responses to address it. The report discusses how trade can provide the goods and services that drive mitigation and adaptation. It also addresses how climate change creates immense challenges for developing countries, but also new opportunities to promote trade diversification in the transition to a low-carbon world. Suitable trade and environmental policies can offer effective economic incentives to attain both sustainable growth and poverty reduction.

'Free Trade and the Environment' examines the impact of international economic integration on the environment, taking as a case study the experience of Mexico, as it transformed itself from one of the most closed economies in the world to one of the mostopen.

Handbook on Trade and the Environment is a good source for those looking for a better understanding of political issues, of legal debates, and of the state of discussion between government, industry, NGO, and private sector groups on topics that are not often treated elsewhere. Judith M. Dean, World Trade Review I would recommend the book to anyone concerned with the interaction of trade and the environment. John Goodier, Reference Reviews In this comprehensive reference work, Kevin Gallagher has compiled a fresh and broad-ranging collection of expert voices commenting on the interdisciplinary field of trade and the environment. For over two decades policymakers and scholars have been struggling to understand the relationship between international trade in a globalizing world and its effects on the natural environment. The authors in this Handbook provide the tools to do just that. The editor s well-worked introduction synthesizes the emerging themes of the collection, which is divided into three sections: trade and environmental quality, trade and environmental politics, and trade and environmental policy. Topics include the extent to which trade liberalization creates pollution havens where dirty industries flock to poorer countries with lax environmental standards, and conversely, how multinational corporations bring cleaner environmental technologies to developing countries when they choose to move abroad. The volume also addresses the extent to which national environmental policy and/or global environmental agreements clash with the emerging rules of the World Trade Organization and whether such environmental policies hinder export competitiveness. Finally, numerous political economy analyses of the complex political coalitions that arise to adapt to and mitigate changes in trade and environmental policy are provided. In addition to broader overviews of the field, in-depth case studies of nations and regions are offered, including the United States, the European Union, China, India and Mexico as well East Asia, Latin America, and Africa. The volume will serve as a guide for scholars new to the field as well as students and policy-makers needing a quick reference to the research on the interface between trade and the environment.

Reference tool to facilitate broader understanding and awareness of relationship between environment and trade which can then become the basis on which fair and environmentally sustainable policies and trade flows are built.