File(s) under permanent embargo
Biofuels, sustainability and trade-related regulatory chill
Recent European Union sustainability criteria for biofuels provide an opportunity to understand more precisely the relationship between national sustainable development policies and World Trade Organization (WTO) law. A desire to avoid WTO conflict was one reason for the omission of stronger criteria addressing negative social and environmental impacts of increased biofuels production. Thus, despite declarations of sustainable development’s central importance in WTO legal texts and statements by the Secretariat, national sustainability regulations risked trade law conflict. This article documents potential reasons for a WTO regulatory chill effect on the sustainability criteria. It then outlines challenges that the regulatory concept poses to trade law, which result primarily from its breadth and complexity, as well as the lack of targeted international standards, and its emphasis on production processes which intrude heavily, in an extraterritorial sense, on importers. It is important to identify these limitations to the mutual supportiveness between trade liberalization and national policies to achieve sustainability goals. However, despite these limitations, the case study also suggests that, with regard to sustainability criteria, sustainable development’s soft power as a WTO legal principle is an important source of influence.
History
Publication status
- Published
File Version
- Published version
Journal
Journal of International Economic LawISSN
1369-3034Publisher
Oxford University PressExternal DOI
Issue
1Volume
15Page range
157-180Department affiliated with
- Law Publications
Full text available
- No
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2013-09-20First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2013-09-20Usage metrics
Categories
No categories selectedKeywords
Licence
Exports
RefWorks
BibTeX
Ref. manager
Endnote
DataCite
NLM
DC