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Hong Kong Trade and Development Symposium
Session 1.2
Articulating Southern Priorities on Trade and Environment
14 December 2005, 10:15-12:45, Room 401
It has been evident for some time that trade policy and environmental policy cannot long pretend to ignore each other's existence. Conceptually, each is an integral element of sustainable development; which, ostensibly, is a stated goal of both. After years of public discussion on this subject, the Fourth WTO Ministerial Conference, held in Qatar in 2001, finally placed a limited set of trade and environment issues on the negotiating agenda of the multilateral trading system. Under this mandate, countries are presently negotiating the liberalisation of environmental goods and services, the relationship between multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) and WTO rules, and information exchange between MEA secretariats and the WTO. Also, explicitly instructed to address depletion of natural stocks, governments are going for clarity and improvement of WTO rules on fisheries subsidies.
The environmental implications of the Doha negotiations, however, are much broader and go beyond what has often been perceived to be a "Northern" agenda on trade environment with ramification for the sustainable development of all Members, including the developing countries among them. For instance, talks on the relationship between the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights are examining the need for regulating access and benefit-sharing related to genetic resources and traditional knowledge. Negotiations on agricultural subsidies and tariffs will have implications for agro-biodiversity and the rural environment while tariff reductions on non-agricultural goods are likely to impact on the sustainability of forests, minerals and fish stocks.
This session aims to bring the voices, perspectives and priorities on trade and environment from the developing world to the attention of delegates and other stakeholders. It thereby aims to help identify Southern priorities for pursuing a proactive approach to integrating environmental considerations into domesitc and multilateral trade policy-making.
The session, which
is organised in the context of the ICTSD-IISD-RING Southern
Agenda on Trade and Environment project, will also provide an opportunity
to launch two books that form the key outpus of this project: "Trade
and Environment: Visions from the South" and "Trade and Environment:
A Resource Book".
Welcoming Remarks and Context by Ricardo Meléndez-Ortiz, ICTSD
Southern
perspectives on trade and environment
- Falou Samb, Agency for International Trade Information and Cooperation (AITIC)
- Joy Kim, United Nations University / Institute for Advanced Studies
- Yash Tandon, South
Centre
Discussants: Beatrice Chaytor, Ministry of Trade, Sierra Leone and Hernán Blanco, Recursos e Investigación para el Desarrollo Sustentable (RIDES)
Next Steps and Book Launch by Mark Halle, European Representative and Director - Trade and Investment, IISD
Ricardo Meléndez-Ortiz is co-founder and first Executive Director of the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, since 1996. He is the Vice-Chair of the Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy (CEESP) and the Chair of CEESP's Group on Environment, Trade and Investment (GETI). Previously he has in turns been involved in strategic stakeholder positions of the international negotiations system: as Director co-founder and General Director, Fundación Futuro Latinoamericano (1994-1996, Quito, Ecuador); as a delegate and principal negotiator for Colombia for the Uruguay Round, the UNCED negotiations and other bilateral and plurilateral processes; as spokesman for G-77, non-aligned countries and regional groupings (1988-1994); and as a consultant for an International Organisation, UNDTCP. He has also served in his country's government as Principal Advisor to the Colombian Minister of Economic Development and on several boards and policy committees of Colombia (1987-1988 Bogotá). He undertook graduate studies in Administration and Management, at Harvard University; undergraduate studies in Economics and Political Science at Los Andes University, Bogotá-Colombia; and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences from Harvard University.
Mark Halle is the European Representative of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and also the global director of IISD's Trade and Investment Programme. Mark has worked since 1975 in international environmental affairs, first with the UN Environment Programme (1975-80), then with WWF-International (1980-83) and IUCN - The World Conservation Union (1983-97), joining IISD in 1998. Mark, a US and Italian dual national was brought up in Switzerland, and has degrees in history from Tufts University (USA) and Cambidge University (UK).
Mr. Falou Samb served as a WTO delegate for Senegal from 1999 to 2003. He established the office for dealing with economic and multilateral trade issues at the Senegalese Permanent Mission in Geneva, working on WTO, UNCTAD, WIPO and the CCI. As a WTO delegate, Mr. Samb worked as the focal point for the LDC Group, the ACP Group, and the African Group, and worked on a wide variety of areas including intellectual property, services trade, and dispute settlement. He played an active role in negotiating the 2001 Doha Declaration on TRIPs and Public Health and the 2003 decision on Special Treatment for LDCs in the negotiations on trade in services. Since January 2003, Mr. Samb has been seconded by the Senegalese Mission to work at the Agency for International Trade Information and Cooperation (AITIC), and is responsible for providing technical assistance to underpriviledged WTO countries, i.e., developing countries, LDCs, and non-resident missions.
Dr. Joy A. Kim is associate fellow and co-ordinator for the UNU-IAS Sustainable Development Governance Programme. She is also a Visiting Professor at the Graduate School of International Management, Aoyamagakuin University, Tokyo. Her research focuses on integrated policy making in the area of trade and sustainable development and institutional coordination among international environmental agreements. She holds a doctoral degree in the area of International Environmental Policy and Sciences from the University of East Anglia in the UK. Before joining the UNU-IAS, she has worked as a PhD researcher for the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in the UK, and for the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP) in Korea as staff researcher. She received numerous scholarships including the Showa Shell Environment Research Grant, the United Nations University Fellowships, British Chevening Scholarships, and Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research Studentships. She works and publishes on issues related to trade and environment, sustainable development, climate change, biodiversity, and environmental goods and services.
Falou Samb served as a WTO delegate for Senegal from 1999 to 2003. He established the office for dealing with economic and multilateral trade issues at the Senegalese Permanent Mission in Geneva, working on WTO, UNCTAD, WIPO and the CCI. As a WTO delegate, Mr. Samb worked as the focal point for the LDC Group, the ACP Group, and the African Group, and worked on a wide variety of areas including intellectual property, services trade, and dispute settlement. He played an active role in negotiating the 2001 Doha Declaration on TRIPs and Public Health and the 2003 decision on Special Treatment for LDCs in the negotiations on trade in services. Since January 2003, Mr. Samb has been seconded by the Senegalese Mission to work at the Agency for International Trade Information and Cooperation (AITIC), and is responsible for providing technical assistance to underpriviledged WTO countries, i.e., developing countries, LDCs, and non-resident missions.
Beatrice Chaytor is Director, Policy, Planning and Research Division, Ministry of Trade & Industry, Sri Lanka. She was formerly with Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development (FIELD, UK).
Hernán Blanco is Project Director, Recursos e Investigación para el Desarrollo Sustentable (RIDES) in Chile. He is a civil engineer with a master’s degree in environment and development from Cambridge University. For the past 12 years, he has worked on issues related to the environment and sustainable development both as a researcher and consultant. He has participated and directed various research projects on such topics as: sustainable development indicators, trade and environment and the environmental impacts of the mining sector in Chile. He is the co-editor of the book Mercosur and the Environment (CIPMA, 1998) and co-author of the book “Civil society participation in confronting environmental conflicts: (CIPMA 2000). He is also a co-founder of RIDES.
Synopsis | Agenda | Speakers Bios | Organisers | Documents
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The Southern Agenda project is jointly implemented by the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and the Regional International Networking Group (RING), who in early 2002 launched the second phase of the Southern Agenda on Trade and Environment. The project aims to strengthen the capacity of trade negotiators, key national policymakers, and regional actors in developing countries to determine priorities for promoting and negotiating proactive positions, which reflect their own 'Southern Agenda' on environment and trade in the multilateral trading system. |
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The International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) facilitates interaction between policy-makers and those outside the system to help trade policy become more supportive of sustainable development. By helping parties increase capacity and become better informed about each other, ICTSD builds bridges between groups with seemingly disparate agendas. It seeks to enable these actors to discover the many places where their interests and priorities coincide, for ultimately sustainable development is their common objective. |
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The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) contributes to sustainable development by advancing policy recommendations on international trade and investment, economic policy, climate change, measurement and assessment, and natural resources management. By using Internet communications, we report on international negotiations and broker knowledge gained through collaborative projects with global partners, resulting in more rigorous research, capacity building in developing countries and better dialogue between North and South. |
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The Regional and International Networking Group (Ring) is a global alliance of predominantly Southern independent research and policy organisations. It was formed in 1991 to stimulate preparations for the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. As part of a co-ordinated programme of activities, each Ring member prepared national sustainable development reports to complement their own government's contributions, and a number of RING institutions were represented in their government's national Earth Summit delegations. |
Background Documents
The
book will be available for reference (not for take-away) at the meeting;
a sign-up sheet will be provided for participants who are interested
in receiving the final published version. Prior to the meeting, participants
can click HERE
or go to:
http://www.trade-environment.org/page/southernagenda/description.htm
for more information.
For more information please contact Patrick Lunt.
