Longer-Term Considerations and Concluding Remarks

In the longer term we believe that both the debate over trade and environmental policies and the growing number of clashes between them will force consideration of a more explicit linkage than currently exists between the two policy subsystems. This linkage will be fostered by increased integration of national economies through trade and investment flows and the increasingly global nature of many environmental problems. This may occur either through the inclusion of environmental agendas in regional and global trade negotiations and/or through parallel efforts at international environmental cooperation. We conclude in this chapter with a consideration of the broad contours of the principles and institutions that could emerge over a longer-term horizon. The potential principles that govern the relationship between trade and environmental policies may have certain national and regional analogues such as an examination of the relative costs and benefits in the determination of the efficacy of trade measures for environmental purposes. As developing countries have seen their interests increasingly tied to international developments, the maintenance of a system that fosters developing country access to industrial country markets is also likely to be central in future systemic evolution. Various elements of a future institutional structure are also considered.