This report explores how regional trade agreements (RTAs) can serve as a vehicle to reflect environmental objectives in chapters and articles dealing with technical barriers to trade and regulatory co-operation. In particular, the analysis builds upon examples from seven recent RTAs that aim at deep economic integration, and explores ways to further incorporate environmental objectives. The report identifies a range of options to reconcile economic and environmental objectives, related to areas of technical barriers to trade and regulatory co-operation, by incorporating environmental considerations as overarching principles, provisions on regulatory impact assessments and ex post evaluations, non-regression clauses, and dedicated chapters and sectoral annexes.
