Environment

Tens of thousands of people descended on Seattle, Washington, in December 1999 to protest a World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting of trade ministers from 130 countries around the world that was intended to launch a new, multi-year set of trade liberalization negotiations. At what became known as the “Battle in Seattle,” some protestors challenged, in street demonstrations that eventually shut down the entire city and Millennium Round talks along with it, the underlying premise of free trade—namely that the benefits of free trade can be shared by all participants. Many protestors dressed up as sea turtles and suggested that the strengthening of open trade through the WTO, and by extension the broadening of globalization, limited the prospects of environmental treaties.
A 1998 WTO decision overturning a U.S. law intended to protect sea turtles had become a flash point for concerns voiced by these protestors about the effect that open trade and globalization have on the environment. The decision, known as the “shrimp-turtle case,” declared a U.S. import ban on shrimp caught without “turtle excluder devices” was in violation of international trade law.
Although the shrimp import ban was intended to protect the environment, most of the affected imports were from Southeast Asian countries that could not afford the turtle excluder devices. Those countries claimed that the United States ban was therefore protecting the environment by harming their development, since their economies depended on shrimp exports.
The case thus highlighted important and interrelated questions about the place of environmental protection in a globalized economy.

• First, what is the proper balance between environmental protection and economic development?
• Second, how can nations cooperate to protect the environment when their interests diverge?
• Third, what is the role of international organizations in deciding the balance between environmental measures and free trade?
• Fourth, should international agreements on trade and other issues contain explicit measures to protect the environment?
• Finally, what are the responsibilities of richer nations to help poorer nations develop environment-friendly policies?