International Economic Law and Policy Blog

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Trade and Environment

116 posts

How Important Are Labor/Environmental Standards in Trade Agreements?

As noted many times on this blog, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have been making a big deal of the absence of enforceable labor/environmental standards in certain trade agreements, such as NAFTA. But how important would these really be? Dan Drezner gives the following answer: Repeat after me: attaching

Can Unilateral Carbon Measures Be Consistent with WTO Rules?

My good friends over at the law firm Sidley Austin have done an analysis of whether certain cap-and-trade greenhouse gas legislation under consideration in the U.S. is consistent with WTO rules. They argue that unilateral legislation can be written in a way that complies with WTO rules, and that

Another Argument Against Ethanol Subsidies

Putting the trade issues aside, there is an environmental argument against corn ethanol subsidies: The widespread use of ethanol from corn could result in nearly twice the greenhouse gas emissions as the gasoline it would replace because of expected land-use changes, researchers concluded Thursday. The study challenges the rush to

Junk Mail, the Environment, and Market Access

Over at the Conglomerate, Gordon Smith complains about all the junk mail he gets and says: "... I am willing to vote for the presidential candidate who proclaims, 'I look forward to nailing the going out of business sign on the front door of the United States Postal Service.

Senator Calls for Unilateral Tariff Lowering

No, it's not a headline from The Onion. It actually happened: Sen. Charles Schumer said Sunday that rising demand for the corn-based fuel additive ethanol is contributing to a spike in milk prices and called for lifting the 54-cent-per-gallon tariff on ethanol imports. Schumer, D-N.Y., said rising

Trade Versus The Environment: Biofuels PPMs

The NY Times reports: In a sign of growing concern about the impact of supposedly “green” policies, European Union officials will propose a ban on imports of certain biofuels, according to a draft law to be unveiled next week. If approved by European governments, the law would prohibit the importation

Greg Mastel on Global Warming versus Free Trade

Greg Mastel writes: In the United States, the Senate is considering legislation authored by Sens. Joseph Lieberman, I.-Conn., and John Warner, R.-Va., to impose an ambitious cap-and-trade system designed to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions. Under the legislation, companies emitting carbon dioxide would be obliged to purchase credits for their

The Light Bulb Ban

I was a bit surprised by the ban on incandescent light bulbs in the U.S. energy bill (probably because I hadn't been following the legislation very closely). Usually regulation of this sort consists of higher standards, or maybe occasionally additional taxes, but here we have an outright

Fuel Efficiency Standards and Trade Rules

New U.S. fuel efficiency standards were signed into law today. Will we see a repeat of the early 1990s U.S. - Autos case? A National Foreign Trade Council report thinks it is possible, but probably unlikely: Unlike other bills, which continue the 1994 CAFE standards' distinction between

The Economist on Carbon Border Measures

In reaction to the proposal for carbon border measures noted here the other day, the Economist's Free Exchange blog expresses skepticism: There are good reasons to react cautiously toward this idea, however. In the first place, developed nation carbon pricing is likely to be helpful to the fight