ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of common assumptions on the impact of free trade on the environment— assumptions which, like the first part of Pascal Lamy's statement, are all-encompassing and deterministic. It examines the specific and immediate hardware-to-hardware impacts: the emphasis is put on the World Trade Organization's (WTO) efforts to actively ensure coherence between international trade law and environmental regulations. The chapter takes into account the role of countries in these coordinative efforts, which is a third factor named by Lamy. The ongoing deadlock among WTO members on ecological questions has so far prevented a more comprehensive approach, thereby leaving the momentum to the organization's dispute settlement system. The chapter explores how broad the assumed scope of this impact can possibly be: it ranged from optimistic expectations of a raise in environmental awareness to deeply pessimistic predictions of an accelerated depletion of worldwide ecological assets.
