地域貿易協定에서의 環境保護

Abstract

The environmental considerations have been reflected in Regional Trade Agreements (hereinafter ‘RTAs’) since 1990s. The drivers for this trend include various motivations of countries concerned such as guaranteeing for sustainable development, making playing field of competition, facilitating environmental cooperation in the area of shared environmental interests. The format and coverage of environmental provisions differ depending on the interests of countries in incorporating them in their RTAs. Especially the FTAs concluded by the United States have a broad of environmental provisions such as obligations to provide a higher level of environmental protection, implement effectively environmental laws, procedural guarantees, dispute settlement system and so on. Environmental cooperation and consultation mechanism are commonly found in most RTAs including environmental provisions. Concerning the relationship between MEAs and RTAs, some RTAs stipulate on MEAs in two ways such as seeking cooperation between the parties to RTAs in implementing the MEAs or resolving some possible conflict between RTAs and MEAs. While the DDA negotiation on the relationship between the specific obligations of the MEAs and the WTO Agreements has come to a standstill, it seems that some WTO members are comparatively more open to deal with this issue in their RTAs. In this situation, the environmental provisions of RTAs can play a role in a mutually supportive manner which would secure effective achievements of the objectives of MEAs and eliminate or reduce possible conflicts between MEAs and RTAs.