Note from the Secretariat The OECD has a long tradition of working on the interlinkages between trade and the environment. Over the 30 years since its creation, the OECD’s Joint Working Party on Trade and the Environment (JWPTE) has, in accordance with its mandate, analysed the interaction between trade and environmental policies, and contributed to the development of a mutually supportive agenda needed to underpin competitive, sustainable and resilient economies. The JWPTE has published over 120 reports on a wide range of trade and environment issues, and provided a forum for information exchange, fostering debate within the trade and environment community and beyond. In 2008, a first retrospective report looked back on the JWPTE’s first 17 years (Potier and Tébar Less, 2008[1]). Following ground-building work on policy principles in the 1990s, from 2001, the JWPTE turned to analytical work in support of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha Development Round negotiations. The JWPTE contributed pioneering work on environmental goods and services and the effect of environmental measures on market access. From the mid-2000s, the JWPTE also focused on regional trade agreements (RTAs) and the environment, and on trade and climate change linkages. Since then, the international context has changed and the landscape of trade and environment issues has evolved, with slow progress of multilateral trade negotiations, opportunities to advance on regional approaches, and key developments around multilateral frameworks such as the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Accord.
This report aims to highlight the transforming landscape of trade and environment issues during the past decade and the JWPTE’s role in advancing policy analysis of these issues. The report also serves as a reference guide to inform future JWTPE projects, in the context of major emerging trends shifting policy needs and priorities in the trade and environment nexus. This report has been prepared by Genevieve McInnes (independent consultant), under the supervision of Rob Dellink, Elisa Lanzi and Shunta Yamaguchi (OECD Environment Directorate), under the general guidance of Shardul Agrawala (OECD Environment Directorate). Comments on earlier drafts by Gregoire Garsous, Evdokia Moisé and Susan Stone are gratefully acknowledged. The report has been reviewed and cleared for publication by the Joint Working Party on Trade and Environment. This report would not have been possible without the financial support of New Zealand.
OECD WORK ON TRADE AND THE ENVIRONMENT: A RETROSPECTIVE, 2008-2020 . 5
