Feb 18, 1991

GATT CONSULTATIONS ON ENVIRONMENT & TRADE.

GENEVA, FEBRUARY 15 (CHAKRAVARTHI RAGHAVAN) – Informal consultations at the GATT on the issues of Environment and Trade, and the proposal of the EFTA countries for revival of a working group set up in 1972 but which had never met, has shown a North-South divide, participants reported Friday.

The EFTA countries have asked for revival of the working group and for the revived group to study the exact interlinkages between environmental policies and trade policies and leading to laying down "clear rules of the game for this area". This request put forward at the GATT Council last week met with opposition and reservations from many Third World countries and ultimately the Chairman of the GATT CPs, Amb. Rubens Ricupero was asked to conduct consultations.

The first such consultations were held Thursday, with a large number of countries and delegates participating and expressing their views.

The discussions centered around the idea of setting up a new working group, reviving the old working group with perhaps an expanded mandated and making it open-ended and the idea of a GATT contribution to the 1992 World Conference on Environment and Development (WCED).

Third World countries with some nuances showed their considerable reserve over the issue of revival of the working group and on GATT work at this stage on environment and trade or studying "trade-related" aspects of environment and laying down rules.

The basic concern of the Third World countries was their fears of this being used as an additional instrument against their exports or the ICs laying down rules that would hurt their trade and development.

The experiences of the Third World in the Uruguay Round in the areas of so-called "trade-related" investment measures and "trade-related" intellectual property rights weighed heavily on most of the countries, one participant said. While sharing these concerns, Argentina and Brazil appeared to feel that the working group could be used to provide a GATT input for the World Conference on Environment and Development to take place in 1992 at Rio de Janeiro at summit level.

The consultations were incomplete and would be pursued at a later date, perhaps in a couple of weeks, GATT sources said.

The EFTA proposals, participants said, were supported by most of the Industrial Countries and particularly Canada and the European Community. The U.S. too supported the idea.

But most of the Third World countries took a negative attitude, with India repeating its position, stated in the GATT Council, that it was not prepared to accept GATT tackling all subjects that might have a linkage with trade.

The Indian view was supported with varying emphasis by Asian, African countries like Nigeria and Tanzania, Jamaica, Peru and Mexico which has already filed a complaint against U.S. for using environment arguments to ban imports of Mexican tuna products.

Some of the Third World countries like Peru and Chile spoke of the Environment/Trade issue having to be looked at from a wider perspective, namely the foreign debt, and Third World development.

Argentina referred to the tendency to use environment issue bilaterally as a trade barrier and stressed the need for multilateral approach and understanding to prevent its being made an instrument of trade barrier.

With Brazil, Argentina seemed to think that the working group could be used to make a GATT contribution for the 1992 WCED meeting. But Argentina and Brazil agreed that beyond making the contribution, work in the GATT should await the actions or decisions of the 1992 meeting on the wider and complex issues of environment and development.