The Boundaries between Trade Rules and Climate Change Measures

In the climate regime the dialogue of climate measures or policies has generally been limited as it has not yet led to any agreed resolution. Moreover, the topic of trade has often been a part of climate discussion, there has long been hesitancy among climate negotiators to tackle more with the international legal implications of the links between climate measures and trade system. The relation between the trade and climate change can no longer be ignored by either World Trade Organization (WTO) or the Conferences of the Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Trade restrictions in the form of Multilateral Environmental Measures (MEAs) that are claimed to relate climate concerns may take many forms and touching on many different WTO rules. The interface between trade rules and environmental measures has been typically analyzed in the effect of trade policy and the effect of environmental policy on trade. In this circumstances the questions might raise, whether trade liberalization leads to environmental degradation and whether more strict environmental policy (climate measures) has a detrimental effect on trade or not.