Мултилатерално регулисање трговинских баријера на тржишту заштите животне средине
Multilateral rules of environmental trade barriers

Summary/Abstract: Environmental market in the contemporary times becomes more and more important segment of overall world market as a potential source of growth and development. This market by some estimates makes up to 10% of the total world market of goods and services. Between international trade and environment there is a mutually conditioned causal link. The importance of environmental protection is an integral part of the founding agreements of the World Trade Organization as a central institution of the international trading system. The Committee for trade and environment within this institution was established in 1994 and it ensures that environmental trade barriers are applied in accordance with all other trade rules of the World Trade Organization. Although the WTO does not have to an explicit group of trade barriers that are applied in the field of environmental protection, these barriers in practice can take many forms, from the specific standards that should be met by products or production processes, to the labeling of products and services, and various other measures to protect human and animal health, and overall environment. The problem of trade barriers in the field of environmental protection is that their use may be legitimate and in accordance with multilateral trade rules, but with the only aim to discriminate against foreign competition. The phenomenon when environmental trade barriers are used under the guise of environmental protection while their only aim is to discriminate against foreign competition in the scientific literature is called “green protectionism”. The phenomenon of “green protectionism” has been a systemic problem especially in the conditions of the recent global economic crisis. The subject of this paper is an analysis of regulation of trade barriers in the field of environmental protection, while the goal of the paper is to determine the quality of international trade rules in this area. Preliminary findings indicate that the trade rules in this area are insufficient, and that within these rules there is a room for the application of environmental trade barriers intended not to protect the environment but to favore domestic market participants which undermines the core principles of the world trading system. Considering the fact that protection of environment is really a question of survival and further development of mankind, the regulation of environmental trade barriers will become certainly an important segment of interest of the scientific and expert community. Perhaps even more important factor which will put this issue on the agenda of the scientific/expert community and the world’s centers of power and decision-making, is that the discriminatory character of these measures is hard to determine which makes them very suitable form of hidden protectionism in contemporary times.

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