Inside US Trade September 13, 2000
Top policy advisers to U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore have proposed creating an international environmental organization patterned after the World Trade Organization to negotiate and enforce new multilateral agreements aimed at addressing environmental problems, as well as growing public concern over the potentially negative impact of trade on the world's natural resources. The plan has been put forward by the three co-chairmen of Gore's international trade advisory group, all of whom are former officials in President Bill Clinton's administration: W. Bowman Cutter (former deputy assistant to the president for economic policy), Joan E. Spero (undersecretary of state for economic, business, and agricultural affairs), and Laura D'Andrea Tyson (chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers and chairman of the National Economic Council).
Tyson, who is now dean of the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley, said earlier in August that the new multilateral environmental organization was needed because the WTO is not the proper forum for dealing with environmental issues.
"You wouldn't expect the WTO to really be the right forum," Tyson said, proposing instead the creation of a "Global Environmental Organization" that would allow environmental negotiations "to be done on more of a standing, regular basis."
Nongovernmental organizations such as the Sierra Club have targeted the WTO for threatening forests, oceans, and other natural resources through the systematic unraveling of laws meant to protect the environment.
Tyson outlined the proposal for a new multilateral environmental organization, which other Gore sources said was aimed partly at blunting NGO criticism of the Geneva-based WTO, at a briefing for reporters at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, Calif., on Aug. 14.
Environmental Groups Lukewarm
Daniel Seligman, director of the Sierra Club's Responsible Trade Program, said that his organization was open to learning more about the Gore-backed proposal. But he said that, for now, he was "somewhat skeptical" that the plan would be able to address the concerns of environmentalists. "The issue can't be resolved without dealing with the [environmental] problems caused by trade agreements," Seligman said, calling the WTO "anti-environmental protection."
He said that creating another institution could merely divert energy without producing results.
The Democratic Party platform approved at the Democratic convention in Los Angles Aug. 14-17 also emphasized the need to ensure that environmental considerations were taken into account when trade agreements were being negotiated. "We need to make the global economy work for all," the platform said in a section on trade. "That means making sure that all trade agreements contain provisions that will protect the environment and labor standards, as well as open markets in other countries. Al Gore will insist on and use the authority to enforce worker rights, human rights, and environmental protections in those agreements. We should use trade to lift up standards around the world, not drag down standards here at home."
Advisers Offer Details
An article in the March/April issue of Foreign Affairs written by Cutter, Spero, and Tyson said that an increasing number of environmental problems, including ozone depletion, climate change, and threats to biodiversity, are international in scope and require cross-border solutions. The article said that highly industrialized countries like the United States are disproportionately responsible for most environmental problems, but developing countries increasingly are also damaging common resources.
"No vehicle exists for nations to negotiate new multilateral pacts on environmental issues," the article said. "That is one big reason why environmentalists have focused on the WTO. But using the WTO as the forum for multilateral environmental negotiations both endangers further trade liberalization and raises the risk that trade will be restricted in the name of environmentalism but in the service of protectionism. To head off these risks, a new Democratic president should propose creating a new Global Environmental Organization to develop and enforce new international agreements on specific problems, using the successful Montreal Protocol on slowing ozone depletion as a model.":
