Trade and Environment

From an article (subscription only) describing the Columbia panel discussion mentioned here: China could plead environmental necessity to win a dispute over its wind industry subsidies, a case now moving through the World Trade Organization, one legal expert suggests. Provisions under Chinese law mandating that nearly all wind power equipment

In the comments, Chris Wold, a law prof at Lewis and Clark law school in Oregon who specializes in trade and environment issues, adds some details about the proposed ban on plastic bags in Oregon: the bill may look discriminatory to a panel: no plastic bags are made in Oregon

From a European Commission press release: On Monday 24 January, the Korean Ministry of Environment made a public announcement of a number of adjustments that will be introduced in a new regulation on car CO2 emissions and fuel efficiency. These follow consultations launched by the Korean Government on a draft

From SSRN, this is the abstract of "EU Biofuels Policy – Raising the Question of WTO Compatibility," by Stephanie Switzer and Joe McMahon: This article examines the question of the compatibility of the new EU Biofuels regime with the disciplines established by the WTO. After an explanation of the

As the Clove Cigarettes WTO dispute (DS406) moves forward, Indonesia is likely to gain a lot of experience relating to de facto discrimination claims, GATT Article XX defenses and the TBT Agreement.  Can they use this experience to bring a claim against EU biofuel restrictions?  Writing in the Jakarta Globe,

In the spirit of the discussion of trade in natural resources that Melaku has been leading, I thought I would do a post on a very technical aspect of the proposed trade ban on bluefin tuna, which may soon be imposed pursuant to the United Nations' Convention on International

At Vox, Rahel Aichele and Gabriel Felbermayr explain how production-based carbon reduction can lead to carbon leakage: Production-based CO2 emission targets can give rise to carbon leakage, as firms relocate to countries without carbon policies. This column shows that Kyoto countries’ embodied CO2 imports have been increasing by about 50%