Agricultural Trade Liberalization and the Environment: Issues and Policies

Although economists have long argued that a country serves its own interest by adopting free trade, recent attempts at further trade liberalization by the World Trade Organization (WTO) have come under heavy criticism. Some environmental, consumer, labor, and religious groups formed a broad “civil society” coalition, which blamed trade liberalization for numerous maladies including domestic job losses, environmental damage, low wages, and child labor in less developed countries (LDCs). The main objective of this chapter is to summarize the key issues raised by fourteen major environmental nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) at the Seattle Ministerial meeting and to review concrete policy proposals these specific NGOs made for reform of the WTO. Although the Ministerial meeting failed to agree on objectives for a new round of negotiations, the built-in agenda of the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture has allowed WTO member countries to launch new agricultural negotiations. Environmental NGOs will likely continue to attempt to affect the outcome of these negotiations.