The WTO is not the enemy

The WTO is not the enemy
          
  The involvement of the WTO in shaping international environment policy has sparked controversy over whether or not economic/ trade based organizations should be able to make such policy. Detractors argue that the WTO both makes and breaks important environmental policy, and so in the interests of trade instead of environmental protection. While the detractors are correct in their evaluation of the WTO’s interests, they do not address how the WTO could avoid impactful environmental decisions. Trade and the environment are intrinsically connected; therefore WTO involvement in environmental decision-making is inevitable. Instead of proposing unrealistic alternatives to the WTO, environmental interests should work with the WTO to create environmental policy.

            The WTO’s involvement in environmental policy is really a matter of what is ideal and what is realistic. Ideally, many argue, environmentalists would be in charge of creating environment policy, or at the least have significant input in policy making.  While this plan would improve environmental policy decisions from the perspective of the environmentalist, it leaves out the impact such policies would have on trade. A heavily pro-environmentalism policy agenda on an international scale would inevitably increase the protectionism of natural resources, which would interrupt international trade. Such theoretical international organization would need political authority to enforce the protection of natural resources. In reality, no such organization exists nor would states be likely to give an international organization much enforcement power.  The WTO, on the other hand, has significant political power and it’s control over capital flows throughout the world. The WTO has used its political leverage to force compliance on several important settlement disputes over the environment.  Cases such as the shrimp-turtle and tuna-dolphin (brought before the WTO’s predecessor, the GATT) exemplify the WTO’s real-world influence of environmental policy, even in high powerful countries. The application of the dispute settlement mechanism against powerful countries like the United States shows that the WTO is serious about its impartiality. This should be promising to environmentalists who fear that the WTO acts in the interests of the most powerful countries, who happen to do the most damage to the environment.

            In my opinion, the WTO establishing a Committee on Trade and Environment shows for clear intent form Carmel issues to play some role in trade relations. While cynics might view this committee as a simple public relations move, I see the committee as a risk that the WTO would not have taken had it not been genuinely concerned about the environmental impact of trade.  By creating this committee, the WTO has created awareness over the relationship between trade and the environment.  From this awareness come the expectations that the Committee on Trade and Environment will take action on environmental issues. Environmental issues were not something the WTO needed to be involved with, yet did anyway. By sticking its neck out for investigating the relationship between the environment and trade, the WTO has open itself up to criticism by both the public and the media.

The optimism for such action must be taken with a grain of salt, however, as the committee has thus far show an unwillingness (or ineptitude) to anything more than talk about environmental issues. In terms of environmental policy, the WTO has been more active at removing state’s environmental protocol than at creating policy that protects the environment. With that being said, I remain optimistic that the Committee on Trade and Environment can one day create positive environmental policy and that the WTO will eventually rule in favor of environmental issues.    

             While detractors may view the WTO’s insistence on protecting natural resources, in order to protect trade long-term, as not real environmentalism, the organization’s honesty implicates a genuine commitment to environmental protection.  If environmental interests could frame policy as protecting a natural resource that is essential to trade, then the WTO could become a powerful tool for passing meaningful environmental policy.

            Probably the most important aspect of keeping the WTO involved in shaping environmental policy would be the unintended consequences of its exclusion from policy making. If states were able to agree to some sort of mandate that would prevent the WTO from making environmental decisions, then the WTO’s trade policies would become increasingly unsustainable. Even if there were an alternate international environmental organization that had the political authority to restrict the WTO’s actions, the WTO’s considerable influence over international capital could be leveraged against any international organization. If you consider the lack of enforcement power international organizations (that do not deal with money i.e. UN) have, its difficult to imagine an international organization truly limiting the WTO over environmental issues. In my opinion, only national security organizations such as NATO could limit the actions of the WTO. And it is unlikely that NATO will get involved in environmental policy anytime soon.

            The WTO has the power to shape international environmental, and whether or not this is ideal is irrelevant. Trade and the environment are intrinsically linked and simply cutting the WTO out of environmental policy is as impossible as it is flawed. Working with trade organizations is the most effective method of creating environmental policy, whether you like it or not.

NGOs and Governments: Working Together

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are a strong force on the front lines of international environmentalism. NGOs are not limited by geographical, political, and economic limitations that are a common hindrance to governments attempting to implement environmental policies. However, NGOs do not carry the power and effectiveness that comes with a major government, and they require the participation and attention of these governments to make legitimate steps towards enacting strong environmental policy.

Greenpeace, one of the most prominent NGOs active today prides itself in the fact that they accomplish environmental goals without going through the motions of the bureaucratic and political process. Organizations like Greenpeace take the matters into their own hands by creating a public uproar and directly addressing the issue by attacking whalers or protesting international summits.  NGOs hope that this spur of public awareness will influence international and domestic government action. Governmental action is often not satisfactory, and NGOs only take more drastic measures.

The reason why government action is often unsatisfactory, but also the reason why NGOs must rely on governments to accomplish anything is because the public and environmental activists are impatient. As Maurice Strong, the secretary general of UNCED, said, “The environment is not going to be saved by environmentalists. Environmentalists do not hold the levers of economic power.” In order to make an effective impact on the environment, NGOs require the influence and power of national governments and regimes. Government action requires time for research, weighing options, and compromising with other nations so as to enact effective policy, rather than rash spur-of-the-moment action that is often seen from NGOs.

The tactics used by NGOs are also brought into question when frustration leads to questionable actions. When Greenpeace uses borderline-violent protests to make a point, governmental agencies question the legitimacy of these groups and the NGOs lose some credibility in the international arena. Tactics used to prevent whaling are even more extreme as some groups, such as the Sea Shepherd, may shoot flares at whaling boats or even intentionally become kidnapped as a means to gain media attention. These actions are seen as threatening by both whaling groups and governmental agencies, and they are simply not as effective as sanctions and legitimate political policy.

One of the main issues that NGOs have is the lack of consistency between different groups. The argument of conservation versus preservation reigns as a point of contention between groups. For some groups, conservation of the world’s oceans or forests is more of a priority than more specific preservation of certain species of animals being affected in those threatened ecosystems. Simple disagreements can be a substantial divide between groups that refuse to compromise or negotiate, simply due to the fact that there is no reason to negotiate. With governments, if there are disagreements, an attempt at a compromise will occur because neither nation will allow another nation to continue a malicious environmental practice.  

            A comparison of governmental action versus NGO action in the case of whaling has yielding varying opinions on which is more effective. In the case of whaling, NGOs have resorted to using tactics like the Sea Shepherd in which they take to the ocean and confront the issue. This has resulted in two things over the years: angry fishermen and media attention. Rather than opting out of whaling, whalers have only become more vigorous with their fishing techniques. In the case of governmental action, proposed ideas would be far more effective, such as trading quotas, an idea published in The Guardian in which whalers would be paid for whales that they do not catch, thus protecting whales from overfishing.

            It is important to note, however, that anyone could front the cost of these whales, including NGOs. No matter what the opinions are regarding governments and NGOs, it is obvious that the best approach is for NGOs to collaborate with government agencies, rather than creating a scenario where they simply butt heads. In the case of whaling, the government sets the quotas and regulations, and the NGOs pay to save the whales, thus creating an agreeable solution on all fronts. 

Governmental Policies Work Best

Almost nothing in life is stagnant. People grow, the earth revolves and time passes. Even while knowing this I find it hard to believe that something so significant to me as a child is no longer in existence. I recently read a book titled Unbowed, by Wangari Maathai, that put into perspective why rivers, key natural resources for many communities across the world, are slowly diminishing, to the point where they are almost nonexistent. Maathai uses the rivers of Kenya to illustrate how there can be problems associated with shared natural resources. This paper seeks to evaluate what happens in the process of diminishing rivers, the tragedy behind it, and what the best possible solutions are in stopping such things from happening. Some of the solutions include privatization, socialization and government restricted usage. Government restricted use, in most cases, is the most effective way to stop a tragedy of the commons situation from occurring, which in this case are the dwindling rivers.

A community without a source of water cannot survive. Wangari Maathai speaks about how the rivers in Kenya, her home country, are becoming a thing of the pass. As a result the people are suffering. After reading her book, I realized that this is also happening in my home country. If this is happening in Kenya and my home country, I am sure it is not unheard of in many other countries across the world. I was born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica and moved to the United States when I was fourteen. When I was young, between ages 5 and 11, I would spend some of my summers in the rural part of the country, where my mother is originally from. In the country, there was a river that the people in the community depended on essentially for life. We would use the water to drink, to cook, to take baths, to wash our clothes, to do everything that somehow required the use of water. Maathai explains that this was the same case in Kenya. In both places, the land around the rivers were quickly changing. Trees were being cut in order to create buildings and satisfy the needs of companies that wanted more capital. Land equals capital. Paired with the constant river usages by the people who live in the communities, they are no longer.

Privatization is one of the ways to limit the amount of people a resource is available to. If companies privatize a natural resource it will no longer be freely open to the public but instead would have to go through the chains of a company in order to be distributed or made available. With privatization there can be an improvement of the quality of the resource, especially because there will be more direct management. Privatization induces regular maintenance that can be spurred from the money flowing in to the owners. In the case of the rivers of Kenya and Jamaica, that satisfy the needs of so many people, privatization could be helpful in making sure that the rivers stay alive. However, this method would disadvantage the community of people who are either not used to paying for their water or are used to getting their water for free.

Socialization could also be a useful tool in helping to stop the diminishing of river sources. Just like recycling has become an accepted norm across the university’s campus so can the idea of water conservation in rural communities. According to Maathai, one of the main reasons for why the rivers of Kenya are slowly depleting is because of the constant deforestation. In fact, she led groups like the Green Belt Movement that focused on teaching people of the importance of planting trees, in order to save the rivers, so that their families can benefit. Socialization can be the start of solving environmental issues a country is facing. However, because it relies so much on the way people think it is often harder to accomplish.

Government restricted usage on natural resources is one of the best methods that can be used to help the environment. This would involve policies and laws in order to implement controls on how much of a natural resource can be used, who can use it and for what reason can it be used. In Maathai’s book she explains that large businesses were practicing deforestation close to rivers in order to build their businesses. When the government intervened, imposing restrictions on where companies could place their businesses the land was saved, which helped save the rivers, which helped save the people’s source of life.

After evaluating the different ways by which global issues can be solved, I conclude that governmental intervention is the most guaranteed effective method. Though privatization can save the resource rom being effected by a tragedy of the commons problem and socialization can affect the way people think; hence, their practices with their resources, government intervention is the most reliable method. When something is law and limitations are set in stone, people either have to follow them or suffer the legal consequences.