Trade and Environment in the World Trade Organization: The Permissible Scope of Environmentally Motivated Unilateral Trade Measures

Environmentally motivated unilateral trade measures have been at the center of attention in the World Trade Organization?s dispute settlement apparatus and in other organs of the multilateral trading system. The controversy around these measures concerns, first and foremost, their legality under the WTO rules. The book addresses the question whether environmentally motivated unilateral trade measures are allowed in the WTO. It argues that these measures are allowed in the system only as a last resort and only if their application runs congruent to the values and objectives recognized by the system. It suggests a technique by which the scope of legality of environmentally motivated unilateral trade measures may be clarified. It is hoped that the discussion and proposition in this book will contribute to the discourse on the clarification of the status of environmentally motivated unilateral trade measures in the WTO.

Teshager Worku Dagne is currently a doctoral student in the Faculty of Law at the University of Dalhousie. He graduated with LL.B degree at the Addis Ababa University, and completed his LL.M studies at the University of Calgary.