“Our overriding message to trade negotiators and to climate negotiators alike about how best to meet the global challenge of reconciling our goals for trade and for climate change is that they must begin by acknowledging the inseparability of the two issues.”
James Bacchus in The Case for a WTO Climate Waiver
The WTO and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change seem to be at odds. The WTO governs trade rules, but not climate. Certain trade restrictions may come into conflict with measures enacted to address climate change — and vice versa. Yet the goal of such controls should be to combine the most benefit for the environment with the least risk to trade.
James Bacchus, a senior fellow with CIGI’s ILRP, was a member of the Appellate Body at the WTO in Geneva and served twice as its chairman. His CIGI special report, The Case for a WTO Climate Waiver, urges the WTO to revise and realign WTO rules in accordance with the objectives of sustainable development. Bacchus continued the debate with other CIGI experts in a public high-level discussion on trade rules and climate measures in January in Ottawa and in an opinion piece for the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development in March.