Fossil fuel subsidies, like subsidies to the fishing sector, lead to trade-distorting and ecologically harmful practices. The US$35 billion in subsidies provided by countries every year to the fishing sector leads to more and more boats being built, even as 90% of fish stocks are either fully...

States sometimes restrict imports to address environmental concerns arising from conduct outside of their territory. Apart from the need to comply with World Trade Organization (WTO) law, these trade measures give rise to two jurisdictional issues: first, the importing State might be alleged to...

"The international legal framework for valuing the carbon stored in forests, known as 'Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation' (REDD+), will have a major impact on indigenous peoples and forest communities. The REDD+ regime contains many assumptions about the identity,...

Subsidies to the fishing sector have trade and ecological consequences, especially for fisheries that are over-exploited. In response, WTO members are negotiating to clarify and improve the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures. Yet significant legal challenges constrain this...

Principle 12 of the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development contains aspirations for the role of trade policy in an open international economic system leading to sustainable development. Paradoxically, Principle 12 goes further than trade law disciplines in suggesting that countries...