Slobodna trgovina i zaštita životne sredine: (ne)rešivi sukob?
Free Trade and Environmental Protection: A Conflict That Can(Not) Be Solved?

Author(s): Katarina Jovičić
Subject(s): Supranational / Global Economy, International Law, Human Ecology
Published by: Institut za uporedno pravo
Keywords: free trade; international trade; environmental protection; General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade; World Trade Organisation
Summary/Abstract: Policy of free trade, on which international trade is based, can negatively affect the environment because an uncontrolled economic growth is often followed by pollution of environment and exhaustion of natural resources. This policy is promoted and protected by the World Trade Organization, which has given priority to free trade in a number of cases in which it expressed its opinion about the relationship between free trade and environment protection. Such treatment has provoked, and is still provoking dissatisfaction not only on the part of the movements for environmental protection, which over the last two decades continuously perform activities at national and international level in order to call attention to the dramatic conflict between free trade and environmental protection, but also within the wider international community. Under the influence of their activities and pressures today it has become clear that this conflict must be resolved in a manner that would allow development of both free trade and environmental protection, which are not mutually exclusive, because both are necessary for survival and development of mankind. This question is discussed in this paper mainly through the analysis of the opinions of GATT and World Trade Organization in two disputes that have attracted particular attention of the international community, which are known as “Tuna-dolphin case” and “Shrimp-sea turtles case”, the paper’s conclusion provides a suggestion as to the principles that could be used in finding the solution for a conflict between free trade and environmental protection.

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