Environmental Law Commons^™

International Investment Agreements: Impacts On Climate Change Policies In India, China And Beyond, Lise Johnson, Brooke Güven

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Mitigating and adapting to climate change will require a fundamental reorientation of our global economy as we move away from fossil fuels and transition to a low carbon and climate-resilient world. This reorientation depends on government actions to help catalyze and channel financial flows in new directions and away from business-as-usual practices.

International investment agreements (IIAs) – treaties that now number over 3,000 and have the objective of promoting and protecting cross-border investment flows_could potentially play a key role in these efforts to scale up and (re)direct investments to meet climate change mitigation and adaptation needs. As presently drafted and …

The Next Generation Of Trade And Environment Conflicts: The Rise Of Green Industrial Policy, Mark Wu, James Salzman

Faculty Scholarship

A major shift is transforming the trade and environment field, triggered by governments’ rising use of industrial policies to spark nascent renewable energy industries and to restrict exports of certain minerals in the face of political economy constraints. While economically distorting, these policies do produce significant economic and environmental benefits. At the same time, they often violate World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, leading to increasingly harsh conflicts between trading partners.

This Article presents a comprehensive analysis of these emerging conflicts, arguing that they represent a sharp break from past trade and environment disputes. It examines the causes of the shift …

Maximum Carbon Intensity Limitations And The Agreement On Technical Barriers To Trade, Charles O. Verrill Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

Emission of greenhouse gases is a global problem. Any nation seeking to restrict such emissions by its manufacturers should avoid putting them at a disadvantage in world and domestic markets where they are likely to compete with producers that do not bear the cost of emission controls. One approach being considered in the United States would be adoption of technical regulations limiting the carbon intensity of basic products, such as cement, aluminum, steel, etc., offered for sale in the US market (carbon intensity would be defined as the C02 equivalent emissions per ton of product). Domestic and imported products that …

Should The World Trade Organization Incorporate Labor And Environmental Standards?, Chantal Thomas

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Climate Change And The Wto: Opportunities To Motivate State Action On Climate Change Through The World Trade Organization, Meinhard Doelle

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This article explores the role of trade in motivating action on climate change, using the specific example of developments within the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The Kyoto Protocol, the first international agreement with legally binding commitments to begin to address climate change by reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, is expected to come into force in 2004. With it, most of the developed world will be committed to modest reduction targets over the next decade. The two largest per capita emitters, the USA and Australia, have so far opted not to join this modest effort to address climate change, and developing …

The Greening Of The World Trade Organization, Sydney M. Cone Iii.

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

The Annihilation Of Sea Turtles: Wto Intransigence And U.S. Equivocation, Lakshman Guruswamy

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Appellate Body, The Protection Of Sea Turtles And The Technique Of "Completing The Analysis", Sydney M. Cone Iii.

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Are Tuna And Dolphins The Same? A Rule Of Reason Approach To Resolve The Trade And Environment Conflict, Anantha K. Paruthipattu

LLM Theses and Essays

Trade and environment are both primary values in an ecologically and economically interdependent world; unleashing trade without regard to environmental impact is as detrimental as guarding the environment at the expense of trade and development. Tuna and dolphins have come to symbolize the policy struggle between trade and environment. In early 1990, the United States banned the import of tuna from Mexico and other countries that were fishing in a manner that damaged dolphins in the Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean. Mexico challenged this ban before a GATT Panel, which ruled against the United States and held that the tuna ban …