WTO and Environmental Standards Issues concerning Trade in India

Much environmental damage is caused due to the increased scale of global economic activities. Trade and environment are closely related to each other. There are certain areas where liberalization of trade aids environmental protection .Liberalized trade will also enable nations to overcome resource constraints, which may have previously limited their growth potential. As a result, the economic activity expands and the resources available for protection of environment will also expand. However, an increase in income, especially of the third world countries is necessary to improve the quality of environment. Another method by which trade liberalization may benefit environment is through exchange of environmentally clean products, services and technologies. Trade and environment are two areas which are intertwined. Trade has both advantageous and disadvantageous impact on environment. Trade helps the environmental cause by increasing the income levels of countries, so that they can spend more on environment related matters. Moreover competition in trade, as created by the WTO can result in both environment friendly products as well as methods of production. But trade can harm the environment as increased trade will always result in an indiscriminate use of natural resources.