Are the Clinton administration and WTO really open to eco-friendly changes in trade rules?
Earlier this year the WTO convened a panel on environmental issues that concluded, “Environmental conditions are worsening daily and the dialogues within these walls have failed to proceed quickly enough to stave off damage,” minutes of the meeting state. Then last month, the WTO issued a report that made some surprisingly candid admissions. For example, it rejected the free-traders’ mantra that increasing incomes in developing countries necessarily leads to more environmental protection. “Not all kinds of economic growth are equally benign for the environment,” the WTO report concluded. The Clinton administration also turned up the rhetorical volume in an effort to appease environmentalists. “The president has been very clear that it is important to integrate environment and public-health protection into the WTO,” the EPA’s Browner said in Seattle last month. But her message was mangled. Form triumphed over substance at the “town hall” in Seattle. What had been billed as dialogue turn
