Research On The Coordination Of Trade And Environment From Global Perspectives

Trade liberalization and environmental protection are two important factors to facilitate social and economic sustainable development as well as improve the standard of living. After World War II, the liberalization of global trade and investment developed so fast that most countries, including developing countries, have accepted and adopted trade liberalization strategies. Furthermore, the foundation of the World Trade Organization in1995marked a brand new adventure of economic globalization.The rapid evolution trade globalization and trade liberalization is bound to bring about an increasing number of environment problems. In fact, these problems have already aroused extensive attention from the whole human society and environment protection has also evolved into a global tide. The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Brazil in1992helped environment protection and sustainable development become the theme of the times, indicating the fact that the international community has raises the environment protection to new heights. At the same time, the complex relationship between trade liberalization and environmental protection also aroused so much attention from the international community, all the governments as well as their people that it became one of the hot issues of international politics and economics.At present, academia mainly focuses on the influence of trade on environment, the reaction of environment on trade, global environmental protection and free ride problem, pollution haven hypothesis, the trade of hazardous goods, the influence of environmental standards on free trade, trade and environment relationship between the North and the South countries, and economic methods to solve transboundary as well as global environmental problems. All of these studies provide multifaceted and multidisciplinary theoretical basis for harmonizing trade and environment, and they are also the background and basis for this thesis study. The way the thesis develops is show as follows:Chapter1is the introductory part, elaborating the significance of the thesis theme, the current research status, the main content, innovation points as well as inadequacies. Chapter2sorts out the main views of scholars home and abroad so as to discuss the relationship between trade and relationship. Then Chapter3discusses the harmonization of trade and environment under the multilateral trading system. While analyzing the evolution of environmental issues in GATT and WTO, this chapter studies how WTO’s dispute settlement system settled the disputes related to environment via several well-known cases. Chapter4discusses how free trade areas harmonize trade and environment relations by comparing the practices of EU and NAFTA. In Chapter5, the trade restrictions adopted in Multilateral Environmental Agreements aiming to protect the environment are analyzed. Chapter6discusses the conflicts between the developed and developing countries because of the significant difference in the environmental standards, and the current situation and problems encountered by developing countries are also discussed in details. The last chapter mainly focuses on the trade and environment issue in China, which, as the biggest developing country in the world, need adjust the current national policies so as to realize the sustainable development of both foreign trade and environmental resources.The primary viewpoints and conclusions are as follows:First, the relationship between trade liberalization and environmental protection is far too complicated. On the one hand, the enhancement of trade liberalization can improve the economic and technological capabilities to cope with environmental problems in almost all the countries, especially developing countries. On the other hand, ecological environment functions as the basis as well as the premise of free trade. Theoretically and logically speaking, free trade doesn’t have irreconcilable conflicts with environmental protection.Second, the multilateral trading system, which is bound to promote free trade, has become the principal driving force of economic globalization which can promote environmental quality and the improvement of human welfare. Although at present developed countries and the developing countries in the WTO have serious differences, in the long run, the WTO can coordinate the relationship between trade and environment, and the relevant environmental measures in WTO framework will also obtain legal status.Third, the free trade areas have provided valuable reference for multilateral trade system to coordinate the North and South member states involved in trade and environment issues. Especially the EU’s principles and the practice of coordinating trade and environment in Mexico in NAFTA have contributed to making a "green" World Trade Organization.Fourth, if developing countries can effectively participate in the policy making of global environmental regulations, then environmental governance accords with the long-term interests of developing countries. The level of participation depends on the implementation of "common but differentiated principle", as well as the technology transfer, capacity building and the financial aid for the sustainable development, etc. Therefore, trade measures should not be considered by multilateral environmental agreements as the only policy tools to fulfill their goals, on the contrary, trade measures and positive support measures should supplement each other, in order to protect the environment and realize sustainable development.Fifth, the relationship between trade and environment embodies not only the contradictions between free trade and environmental protection, but also the conflicts of interests between developed countries and the developing countries. To a great extent, all of these contradictions and conflicts are caused by the huge discrepancy in in economic power and technological level between the North and the South. To the South, poverty and backwardness is the biggest obstacle to environmental protection, while export is one of the main sources of income, so the developing countries should be given more market access together with more capital and technical assistance with the premise of not the environmental sustainability of developing countries. Only thus can developing countries have the ability to effectively protect the environment, and the whole world can realize the goal of sustainable development. In recent years, the frequent trade disputes relevant to environmental issues between the North and the South have interfered with the normal conduct of international trade, which, at the same time, have been unfavorable for the settlement of global environmental problems. Therefore, the contradictions and conflict between the developed countries and the developing countries around the free trade and environmental protection has become the focus of international political and economic problems. At present, how to solve this contradiction has become a difficult task for the international community.Sixth, China needs to conform to the trend of green trade so as to realize the sustainable development of both foreign trade and environmental protection At present China has witnessed serious environmental problems aroused by foreign trade, such as the destruction of ecological environment and an increasing number of environmental barriers. Through the in-depth discussion how China’s foreign trade influence the environmental protection and how the international trend of environmental protection impacts China’s foreign trade, this thesis suggests a policy framework for sustainable development of foreign trade.The possible innovations of this thesis are as follows:First, this thesis, with the topic is the coordination of the trade and the environment solely from the perspective developing countries, mainly focuses on how developing countries can grow their way out of its difficulties in coordinating the trade and the environment coordination. The research results have practical and guiding significance.Second, based on the previous research results theoretically, taking trade and environment as an independent field of study, the thesis conducts an overall, thorough and systematic study on trade and environment from the perspective of developing countries. At the same time, the thesis integrates the scattered research into a complete system from the aspects of theory, policy, approaches and standards.Third, the thesis analyses the impacts of trade restrictions in multinational environmental agreements upon international trade from a brand new perspective and suggests that simply resorting to trade sanctions are not the best solution.