Trade and the Environment within the WTO: Accountability of an International Trade Organization: Tradeoffs and Contraints

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This project is focusing on how international trade negotiators and regulators who make decisions on trade issues that impact on other social-political issues such as the degradation of the environment, take account of the views of interest groups. Specifically, this research is analyzing the tradeoffs, constraints, and potential pathologies of permitting increased access to private parties to the primary international trade body, the World Trade Organization (WTO). This research takes the `stakeholders` model of governance beyond its current descriptive state with an analysis grounded on the manner in which the WTO takes account of trade and environmental matters to evaluate tradeoffs, constraints, and potential pathologies (e.g., favoring certain private interests to others' detriment). The primary method being used to collect data uses interviews with key members of the WTO secretariat, a sample of WTO delegates from state governments representing differing levels of development and geographic location, representatives of intergovernmental organizations, and representatives of not-for-profit and business organizations. In addition, all public documents related to WTO Committee on Trade and Environment are being analyzed. The project results will provide scholars, policy makers and citizens with a much better understanding of how the WTO receives and processes information from third parties and how it distributes information to actors who have stakes in its decisions. %%% This project is focusing on how international trade negotiators and regulators who make decisions on trade issues that impact on other social-political issues such as the degradation of the environment, take account of the views of interest groups. Specifically, this research is analyzing the tradeoffs, constraints, and potential pathologies of permitting increased access to private parties to the primary international trade body, the World Trade Organization (WTO). This research takes the `stakeholders` model of governance beyond its current descriptive state with an analysis grounded on the manner in which the WTO takes account of trade and environmental matters to evaluate tradeoffs, constraints, and potential pathologies (e.g., favoring certain private interests to others' detriment). The primary method being used to collect data uses interviews with key members of the WTO secretariat, a sample of WTO delegates from state governments representing differing levels of development and geographic location, representatives of intergovernmental organizations, and representatives of not-for-profit and business organizations. In addition, all public documents related to WTO Committee on Trade and Environment are being analyzed. The project results will provide scholars, policy makers and citizens with a much better understanding of how the WTO receives and processes information from third parties and how it distributes information to actors who have stakes in its decisions.