Co-organised by the OECD Joint Working Party on Trade and Environment and the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with financial support from the European Union, the workshop was held on 23-24 January 2018, in Santiago, Chile, the workshop focused on key issues related to Regional Trade Agreements (RTA) and the environment, including: (i) an introduction to RTAs and the environment; (ii) international and regional experience; (iii) ex-post evaluation; (iv) the role of public participation; and (iv) greening RTAs on investment.
Session 1: RTAS AND THE ENVIRONMENT – SETTING THE SCENE
Session 2: INTERNATIONAL AND REGIONAL EXPERIENCE ON RTAS AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Roundtable: Regional practices in incorporating environmental provisions
Session 3: EVALUATION OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF RTAS
Session 4: RTAS AND THE ENVIRONMENT: THE ROLE OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
Session 5: GREENING RTAS ON INVESTMENT
WORKING PAPERS
The workshop was a multi-stakeholder event that brought together experts in the field of trade and environment from OECD and invited partner governments, international organisations, NGOs and academia.
Environmental objectives are increasingly being incorporated into Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) to promote environmental quality, to prevent market failures and externalities related to increasing levels of pollution and ultimately to ensure the mutual supportiveness of trade and environmental policies.
Since 2005, the OECD, under the Joint Working Party on Trade and Environment (JWPTE), has been investigating the trends of environmental provisions in regional trade agreements (RTAs) and their effects on the environment. Under its work programme on trade and the environment, the JWPTE has developed and released several publications on “RTAs and the environment” to deepen knowledge in this emerging area.
In a parallel effort, the JWPTE has organised a number of workshops on RTAs and the environment to create dialogue on this issue by inviting participants from both OECD and non-OECD countries. The first workshop was organised in Paris in 2006 and was followed by several other workshops hosted in: Tokyo, Japan (2007); Santiago, Chile (2008); Paris, France (2010 and 2016); and Hanoi, Vietnam (2014).
The workshop provided an opportunity to engage with countries of Central and Latin America and beyond to update regional dialogue on this topic.
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