Balancing Human Rights, Environmental Protection and International Trade: Lessons from the EU Experience (Studies in International Trade and Investment Law) - Softcover

Reid, Emily

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1509913807 ISBN 13: 9781509913800

Publisher: Hart Publishing, 2017

Synopsis

This book explores the means by which economic liberalisation can be reconciled with human rights and environmental protection in the regulation of international trade. It is primarily concerned with identifying the lessons the international community can learn, specifically in the context of the WTO, from decades of European Community and Union experience in facing this question. The book demonstrates first that it is possible to reconcile the pursuit of economic and non-economic interests, that the EU has found a mechanism by which to do so, and that the application of the principle of proportionality is fundamental to the realisation of this. It is argued that the EU approach can be characterised as a practical application of the principle of sustainable development. Secondly, from the analysis of the EU experience, this book identifies fundamental conditions crucial to achieving this 'reconciliation'. Thirdly, the book explores the implications of lessons from the EU experience for the international community. In so doing it assesses both the potential and limits of the existing international regulatory framework for such reconciliation. The book develops a deeper understanding of the inter-relationship between the legal regulation of economic and non-economic development, adding clarity to the debate in a controversial area. It argues that a more holistic approach to the consideration of 'development', encompassing economic and non-economic concerns - 'sustainable' development - is not only desirable in principle but realisable in practice.

About this title

About the Authors

Emily Reid is Associate Professor in EU Law at the University of Southampton.

Gabrielle Marceau is Honorary Professor (Emeritus) at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, and Visiting Professor at the University of Ottawa, Canada. She worked at the World Trade Organization Secretariat for over 30 years, serving as a legal adviser in international disputes, in the Cabinet of Director-General Pascal Lamy, and in the Economic Research
and Statistics Division.

Krista Nadakavukaren Schefer is Vice Director at the Swiss Institute of Comparative Law, Switzerland.

Federico Ortino is a Reader in International Economic Law at King's College London, UK.

Gregory Shaffer is the Scott K Ginsburg Professor of International Law at Georgetown University Law Center, USA.

Edition details

• Publisher: Hart Publishing
• Publication date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1509913807
• ISBN 13: 9781509913800
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 364