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Book Reviews
Petersmann, Ernst-Ulrich. International and European Trade and
Environmental Law after the Uruguay Round. London, The Hague, Boston:
Kluwer Law International, 1995. Pp. xiv, 161. Index. Dfl 122; £45;
$78.
This book, based partly on lectures given at the 1993 Academy of
European Law of the European University Institute (Florence), is an excellent
and well-documented guide to the difficult interface of trade law and
environmental law. The book deals with a sensitive subject, at times highly
publicized due to flare-ups of tension between environmental groups and the
international trade community. At face value, there is indeed scope for a great
deal of tension between the policies of liberalizing international trade and
the policies of protecting the environment. Put most bluntly - and it must be
said that debates in this area are too often blunt and rhetorical -
environmental groups claim that trade liberalization is almost by definition
negative for the environment, and it has been very difficult for the
international trade community to rebut that allegation.
Petersmann's overall aim in discussing the structure of international
and European law on trade and environment is apparently to defuse this tension.
His basic claim is that international trade policies and environmental
protection policies face similar problems of a political economy nature: `both
... lend themselves to protectionist abuses because they involve powers to tax
and restrict domestic citizens and to redistribute income among domestic
groups' (p. 8). But not only are the problems similar, the solutions, too, are
comparable in that legal instruments in both areas can be ranked according to
their efficiency. And Petersmann further argues that if policy makers were
always to make use of the first-ranking legal instruments, there would be no
tension between protection of the environment and trade liberalization.
That is certainly an approach with which one could take issue. However,
it must be emphasized that the author's effort to structure the thinking on the
role of the law in the approach of these far-ranging issues is utterly
remarkable and displays a strong grasp of the subject. For the international
trade law side, this is not surprising, given the author's career. But
Petersmann is also well versed in European Community law and in international
environmental law.
For the present reviewer the book is also fascinating because it is one
of the first real attempts to compare international trade law in a particular
area with EC law. Too often the relationship between those legal systems is
looked at in terms of conflict, whereas there is a wide range of issues where a
comparative law approach may well yield far better and more interesting
results.
What the reader will not find in this book are the ultimate answers to
the many legal questions which the interface between international and European
trade law and environmental law raise. However, he or she will discover an
extremely useful access to the political and legal debate, replete with
exhaustive references to legal instruments, case law (both reproduced in
helpful annexes), and literature, in an analysis leaving no stone unturned.
Piet Eeckhout
© 1990-2004 European Journal of International Law
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Tuesday, October 14, 2003 12:37PM