The WTO's Committee on Trade and Environment: reconciling GATT 1994 with unilateral trade-related environmental measures

A short review of the relationship between multilateral environmental agreements, unilateral trade-related environmental measures and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994, and the question whether the interpretation of World Trade Organisation provisions has gone too far in favour of environmental protection; divisions in the Committee on Trade and Environment regarding the 'evolutionary interpretation' of these provisions by the Appellate Body in the 'Shrimp/Turtle' dispute; conclusion that '[t]o continue with an increasingly expansive reading of [Article XX] may endanger the credibility of the Dispute Settlement Body, which would benefit neither environmental protection, nor free trade policies'.