ABSTRACT
Relevant WTO treaties state that trade liberalisation and environmental protection are ‘mutually supportive’. Yet negotiations reveal more contentious discourses: that environmental regulation comprises ‘green protectionism’, or that environmental protection is a ‘non-trade’ issue. Mutual supportiveness does not contradict, but rather encompasses, these divisions. It maintains positive ambiguity: an assertion that there is no conflict between economic development and environmental protection, and also an aspiration yet to be achieved. While it implies a duty to seek good faith solutions in event of conflicts of laws or norms, it does not prescribe any precise obligation. Thus, it circumscribes the WTO’s environmental ambitions.
