ABSTRACT
European industry considers that the relationship between trade measures contained in multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) and World Trade Organization (WTO) should be resolved at the 1999 WTO High Level Meeting on trade and the environment. The Understanding needs to set out certain basic criteria that MEAs have to meet in order to benefit from the WTO accommodation, in particular a test as to whether the trade measure is necessary to achieve the environmental objective of the MEA. Union of Industrial and Employers’ Confederations of Europe (UNICE) favours an amendment of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Article XX(b) together with an Understanding on the relationship between trade measures taken pursuant to MEAs and the WTO rules. A WTO challenge would remain possible, but the challenger would have to overcome a higher procedural threshold than if a unilateral measure were being challenged.
