Publisher's Synopsis
In 1995 the WTO became the successor to GATT. While most trade officials and others who have a direct interest in multilateral trade policy consider this multilateral system to be a major contributor to the enormous growth of world trade and income over the past half century, the WTO is viewed with suspicion and even animosity by many environmentalists. The criticisms focus on many different aspects of the WTO. Some maintain that trade liberalisation under WTO auspices has led to an environmentally harmful exploitation of natural and other resources, and others argue that the WTO hampers governments in pursuing environmentally friendly policies. The principal issues in the trade and environment debate preoccupied negotiations at the close of the twentieth century. With the failure to launch a new round of WTO negotiations in Seattle in 2000, these fundamental issues returned to the agenda at the meeting of Trade Ministers in late 2001 in Qatar.
