Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1995
Abstract
In this article, Professor Howard Chang addresses the role of trade restrictions in supporting policies to protect the global environment and proposes a more liberal treatment of these environmental trade measures than that adopted by dispute-settlement panels of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The GATT Secretariat has recommended that countries like the United States rely on "carrots" rather than "sticks" in order to induce the participation of other countries in multilateral environmental agreements. Professor Chang defends the use of sticks on the ground that they encourage more restrained exploitation of the environment pending a multilateral agreement. First, sticks discourage countries from harming the environment. Second, carrots create perverse incentives. Countries may seek to convince others that they derive large benefits from exploitation by engaging in a great deal of exploitation, so that other countries will offer larger carrots to induce their restraint. Professor Chang also addresses how GATT should limit the use of trade restrictions to prevent the protectionist abuse of trade measures.
Keywords
Legislation, Economics, Environmental Law, International Trade, Government Regulation
Publication Title
Georgetown Law Journal
Repository Citation
Chang, Howard F., "An Economic Analysis of Trade Measures to Protect the Global Environment" (1995). All Faculty Scholarship. 1037.
https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/faculty_scholarship/1037
Included in
Antitrust and Trade Regulation Commons, Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics Commons, Economic Policy Commons, International and Area Studies Commons, International Economics Commons, International Law Commons, International Trade Law Commons, Law and Economics Commons, Legislation Commons, Transnational Law Commons
Publication Citation
83 Geo. L.J. 2131 (1995).