Balancing International Trade with Environmental Protection : International Legal Aspects of Eco-Labels

The prospect of long-term global and irreversible harm to the environment by certain economic activities of our generation has brought environmental issues from the periphery to the center of the international political agenda. Consequently, the world has entered a new age of environmental diplomacy, resulting in a rapid evolution of the international law of the environment. The political awakening and rising level of public concern over the state of our environment during the past few decades have resulted in the adoption of a number of international instruments designed to limit the harm to the environment from human activity. While most measures adopted in the first few decades of the second half of this century concentrated primarily on end-of-pipe solutions, many measures adopted in the recent past have sought to identify and arrest the environmental problems before they occur. In accordance with this precautionary approach, which demands that attention be paid to the sources of the problem, states started exploring various possibilities of creating economic incentives for various industries to produce environmentally less damaging products rather than imposing the will of the state on particular industries. Although traditionally market forces have been perceived as environmentally unfriendly actors, certain experiences have demonstrated that well conceived economic incentives to industry can play a significant role in programs for the protection of the environment and the sustainable use and development of the resources of the earth. Accordingly, it was as early as 1971 that Germany's national environmental plan put forward the concept