CEES Working Paper Series

Adil Najam and Nick Robins
Center for Energy and Environmental Studies
International Relations
Boston University

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Introduction

(This paper has been published in the journal 'International Affairs', Volume 77, Number 1, pages 93-111; please use that reference for all citation purposes). The failure at Seattle to agree the mandate for a new round of trade negotiations represents a dual crisis not only for the trade community, but also for those supporting a shift to sustainable development. At the root of the crisis lies the North-South fault line, with an embedded sense of inequity keeping developing countries forever wary of the industrialized countries, not least on linkages between trade and the environment. But Seattle also showed that the Souths current non-strategy towards trade and the environment opposing any formal linkage within the World Trade Organization, for example is flawed. As a result, the South is now seen as the global scapegoat for on inaction trade and environment, and has shut itself out of opportunities to shape the direction of the debate. Furthermore, trade and environmental factors are being progressively linked in the marketplace not because of the WTO, but in spite of it. The challenge for the South is to take a more proactive approach, generating a positive agenda for change based on issues of sustainable livelihoods, environmental justice and sustainable development more broadly. One starting point is to test current policy positions against the alternative visions of the future for example, through scenario planning and developing a robust no regrets‰ program for engagement. The South has the most to gain from a world structured around the norms of sustainable development and as a result, it has the primary responsibility for rebranding the goals of trade away from the limited agenda of free trade towards the more inclusive programme of sustainable trade. Whether this rebranding takes place, and whether the South takes a hand in shaping this process, will be one of the central questions for the years ahead.

 

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