In the early 1990s, there were two significant events affected the whole world dramatically. One was that the completion of the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 19941. It is believed that trade liberalization is important to enhancing world economic welfare. The other was that the concept of sustainable development was arisen during the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in June 1992 and the concept was stressed in the Rio Declaration. Environmental protection has become an exceedingly important objective. As time going, people are more and more concerned with the environmental degradation and tried to find out the cause. Some believe that free trade leads to depletion of natural resources and pollution of environment. Some identify poverty as the primary cause of environment degradation and recognize the need for a new era of economic growth. Some countries use trade measures to protect environment, but are opposed by some other countries. The linkage between trade and environment becomes a major controversial topic in the areas of both international environment law and international trade law. The Committee on Trade and Environment (CTE)2 was established aiming to identify the relationship between trade and environmental measures in order to promote sustainable development. However, so far the connections between the two fields remain unresolved and controversial. It is clear that the opinions of those who are primarily concerned with the environment are completely different from those prefer free trade, and there are also obvious difference in attitude to the issue between developed and developing countries. This article is to briefly outline different points of view and attitudes, discuss some important cases in this area, and try to provide our suggestions based on the different solutions. Part One: Conflicting opinions and attitudes to free trade and environmental protection As mentioned above, there are different opinions and attitudes to the relationship between trade and environment. Those prefer free trade regard environment factors as part of the comparative advantages that one country may have to another.3 If all the countries have the same environmental standards or environmental resources, it will distort the free trade because it is negative to comparative advantages that are the basis of the belief of free trade. They believe that a country would only raise its environmental standards when the marginal benefits of that protection would be equal to the marginal costs. It is this market-based idea that determines the efficient allocation of resources between environment and other concerns. Actually, when the economic growth of the developing countries has reached the threshold, they begin to take steps to raise their environmental standards. One example is that Singapore has adopted its own eco-labelling scheme, the “Green Label” in 1992. In the past, the eco-labelling scheme was regarded to be used only by the developed countries to protect environment. Another point of those in favour of free trade is that there should be no inherent conflict between trade and environment. The common objective of the two sides is better life, trade is regarded as a means to attain sustainable development, and we should use trade measures to further protect the environment, but not use environmental measures，英语论文网站，英语毕业论文 |
