Sustainable development in the major international trade agreements as applied to cross-border crude oil trade.
(2008)Department of Law
- Abstract
- Oil has been the major fossil fuel since the days of its discovering. It takes a special place in the international energy trade regime, as it is an exhaustible natural resource sensitive to political and economic changes. The instability in oil prices may lead to a considerable disruption of the global economy. The ongoing liberalization of oil markets, the forthcoming WTO accessions of major energy exporting countries, and, most notably, the current rise of crude oil prices - are the factors that make the objective of sustainable oil trade one of the most important topics of today's agenda. Oil trade is sustainable only if it is being carried out in a form that does not threaten the environment. In particular, the traded crude oil shall... (More)
- Oil has been the major fossil fuel since the days of its discovering. It takes a special place in the international energy trade regime, as it is an exhaustible natural resource sensitive to political and economic changes. The instability in oil prices may lead to a considerable disruption of the global economy. The ongoing liberalization of oil markets, the forthcoming WTO accessions of major energy exporting countries, and, most notably, the current rise of crude oil prices - are the factors that make the objective of sustainable oil trade one of the most important topics of today's agenda. Oil trade is sustainable only if it is being carried out in a form that does not threaten the environment. In particular, the traded crude oil shall fulfil certain environmental requirements posed on its physical properties and technologies used at all stages - from exploration to abandonment. For this purpose, trade policies regularly intersect with environmental concerns and encompass the concept of sustainable development - the hallmark of international environmental law. The major international trade agreements applicable to crude oil trade are as follows: General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade- to be found under the WTO umbrella, Energy Charter Treaty with its Protocol on Energy Efficiency and Related Environmental Aspects, North America Free Trade Agreement. They all have a significant number of Members, a high penetrating power and are of interest from a legal-technical point of view. In accordance with the number of signatories and the geographical coverage, they can be further classified into three groups- multilateral, plurilateral sectoral and regional integration agreements. All the agreements within the three groups have incorporated environmental concerns and have linked the concept of sustainable development with trade. However, the currently existing environmental measures suffer from diverse defects that need to be cured. Notably, they lack a sufficient enforcement mechanism and a clear strategy to ensure that a trade agreement will be able to promote sustainable energy trade. The aforementioned defects can be cured in a number of ways. The reform of the existing ''sustainable'' provisions of international trade agreements is necessary to link trade liberalization, environment and social cohesion in the best possible way. In this Thesis, a realistic way to achieve a more sustainable crude oil trade is suggested: to adopt such trade measures as specific carbon dioxide tax, import limitations or import bans (as the most radical measure) of unconventional crude oil (provided that such measures would satisfy other GATT requirements)&semic to adopt a stricter technical certification procedure, special technical standards requirements and regulations aimed at, inter alia, enhancing the quality of exploration, exploitation, production and disposal of crude oil. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/1562679
- author
- Turgot, Tanja
- supervisor
- organization
- year
- 2008
- type
- H3 - Professional qualifications (4 Years - )
- subject
- keywords
- Miljörätt, Utrikeshandelsrätt
- language
- English
- id
- 1562679
- date added to LUP
- 2010-03-08 15:55:30
- date last changed
- 2010-03-08 15:55:30
@misc{1562679,
abstract = {{Oil has been the major fossil fuel since the days of its discovering. It takes a special place in the international energy trade regime, as it is an exhaustible natural resource sensitive to political and economic changes. The instability in oil prices may lead to a considerable disruption of the global economy. The ongoing liberalization of oil markets, the forthcoming WTO accessions of major energy exporting countries, and, most notably, the current rise of crude oil prices - are the factors that make the objective of sustainable oil trade one of the most important topics of today's agenda. Oil trade is sustainable only if it is being carried out in a form that does not threaten the environment. In particular, the traded crude oil shall fulfil certain environmental requirements posed on its physical properties and technologies used at all stages - from exploration to abandonment. For this purpose, trade policies regularly intersect with environmental concerns and encompass the concept of sustainable development - the hallmark of international environmental law. The major international trade agreements applicable to crude oil trade are as follows: General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade- to be found under the WTO umbrella, Energy Charter Treaty with its Protocol on Energy Efficiency and Related Environmental Aspects, North America Free Trade Agreement. They all have a significant number of Members, a high penetrating power and are of interest from a legal-technical point of view. In accordance with the number of signatories and the geographical coverage, they can be further classified into three groups- multilateral, plurilateral sectoral and regional integration agreements. All the agreements within the three groups have incorporated environmental concerns and have linked the concept of sustainable development with trade. However, the currently existing environmental measures suffer from diverse defects that need to be cured. Notably, they lack a sufficient enforcement mechanism and a clear strategy to ensure that a trade agreement will be able to promote sustainable energy trade. The aforementioned defects can be cured in a number of ways. The reform of the existing ''sustainable'' provisions of international trade agreements is necessary to link trade liberalization, environment and social cohesion in the best possible way. In this Thesis, a realistic way to achieve a more sustainable crude oil trade is suggested: to adopt such trade measures as specific carbon dioxide tax, import limitations or import bans (as the most radical measure) of unconventional crude oil (provided that such measures would satisfy other GATT requirements)&semic to adopt a stricter technical certification procedure, special technical standards requirements and regulations aimed at, inter alia, enhancing the quality of exploration, exploitation, production and disposal of crude oil.}},
author = {{Turgot, Tanja}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Sustainable development in the major international trade agreements as applied to cross-border crude oil trade.}},
year = {{2008}},
}