7:47 AM Feb 1, 1994

ENVIRONMENT DEBATE HOTTING UP?

Geneva 31 Jan (TWN) -- Efforts at drawing up a work programme on trade and environment for the April meeting of the Trade Ministers at Marrakesh to sign the Uruguay Round accords get under way in the GATT this week -- even as various other bilateral and plurilateral meetings on environment are taking place.

The UN Environment Programme is calling a limited meeting of Environment Ministers from key countries of the North and South in Geneva in mid-February which while addressing wider environment issues is likely to be used by some of its Northern participants to push the trade-environment link questions.

A bilateral meeting between the US and the European Community, with non-governmental organizations of both participating, was held last week at The Hague to discuss the trade-environment linkages.

A similar EC-EFTA meeting is set for this week.

At the US-EC meeting, the two sides are reported to have agreed on the establishment of a Trade and Environment Committee at an appropriate level in the proposed new World Trade Organization.

However the two sides appear to have disagreed on an issue of importance to the multilateral system.

The US (represented by high officials of the Environment Protection Agency), at this meeting, would appear to have insisted on the US right to take unilateral measures for environmental purposes.

But the European Community (with participation of high officials from the Commission's environment, development cooperation and trade divisions) expressed strong opposition to any unilateral trade measures on environment grounds.

While the US seemed to be holding out for unilateral actions, where it contends there is no WTO or GATT framework on trade-related environment questions, the EC reportedly insisted that unilateral actions should be rejected under any circumstances.

The GATT discussions are taking place against the background of the Second Report of the Ukawa Group on Environmental Measures and International Trade (EMIT to last week's annual session of the GATT CPs.

A number of Northern environmental groups are also in the process of holding consultations with each other to present a coordinated position for an OECD Environment/Trade consultations -- where these groups seem intent on pushing the idea of legitimising import restrictions based on socalled "Product Process Methods" (PPMs).

The issue though is creating a situation of some discord among Northern and Southern NGOs who forged a broad unity in the UNCED process.

The PPMs are based on the concept that any country seeking to establish higher environment standards and restrict or prohibit certain manufacturing processes should be able to restrict imports from other countries that produce goods by the same process and thus purportedly gain an unfair competitive trade advantage.

But as the Ukawa report has pointed out this assumes that environmental standards, and the processes needed to protect it would be the same for all countries.

Developing countries have been vehemently opposed to such unilateral PPMs and insist that only multilateral treaties with wide, if not universal participation, and signifying a global consensus, should be able to restrict or prohibit processes that have negative effects on the world's environment. Even then the trade option as a way of enforcement should be the exception rather than a rule.

Meanwhile, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), a Swiss-based international NGO in a 'position statement' has urged that the Marrakesh Ministerial meeting establish a permanent Trade and Environment Committee at the WTO and to deal with "the whole gamut of trade and environment issues".

The WWF also called upon other UN bodies engaged in the field of environment, trade and sustainable development to undertake complementary work programmes to those of GATT.

"At present GATT work fails to address environmental effects of trade and has not tackled the interference of trade rules with environmental policies," the WWF spokesman on Trade, Charles Arden-Clarke said.

The open-ended GATT/WTO work programme, the WWF said should address:

* Trade-related environmental effects of PPMs,

* Relationship between GATT and international environmental agreements,

* value of export controls in sustainable management of natural resources, and

* enhancing market access for developing countries to support sustainable development.

The entire work programme and recommendations coming out of should be sensitive to the technological and financial needs of developing countries, the WWF statement said.

Success of the programme hinges on close cooperation between GATT and other multilateral institutions promoting sustainable development, and with the whole GATT process transparent and open to inputs from NGOs, the WWF added.