Reconciling Trade and Environmental Conflicts in International Law

Sustainable development calls for a balance to be struck between the promotion of trade and environmental protection. This book investigates how to strike such a balance in practice by assessing the relationship between WTO Agreements and the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. The book provides a systematic exploration of how the general international rules on conflict of norms apply to the relationship between the two WTO Agreements and the Protocol, and the extent to which this specific relationship might influence how treaty conflicts should be dealt with generally in international law. Based on both doctrinal and original empirical evidence, this book goes beyond the principle of systemic integration in treaty interpretation which is generally relied upon as a conflict avoidance technique at the international adjudicative level. It further discerns a number of principles that underlie systemic integration, including the principles of mutual supportiveness, good faith, cooperation, and harmonization. These principles could be applied to potentially avoid treaty conflicts and are capable of driving reconciliation at not only the international judicial, but also the international institutional and domestic levels. This book will be a valuable resource for scholars and policymakers in the fields of international economic law, international environmental law and public international law.