Objectives

This workshop focused on key issues related to Regional Trade Agreements (RTA) and the environment. It had three main objectives: (i) to take stock of current experience and insights on RTAs and the environment from different stakeholders, and to establish a stakeholder dialogue on this topic, (ii) to investigate how RTAs can serve as a vehicle to advance a resource efficient and circular economy transition, and (iii) to explore the potential of RTAs in addressing the nexus of illegal trade and environmental crime. It was organised under the auspices of the OECD Joint Working Party on Trade and Environment (JWPTE) with financial support from the European Union.            

 

Documents and presentations

• Agenda
• Speakers' biographies
• Summary Report
  

 

Day 1: Thursday, 10 June 2021

 

Opening remarks and introduction

• Rodolfo Lacy, OECD Environment Director
• Alejandra Aguilar, JWPTE Co-Chair

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Session 1 - Overview and recent developments on regional trade agreements and the environment

Moderator: Joe Ferrante, US Environmental Protection Agency and JWPTE Vice Chair 

Speakers:

• Jean-Frédéric Morin, Laval University (Insights from the TREND database) 
• Rob Dellink, OECD Environment Directorate (Insights from work on RTAs and the environment)

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Session 2 - RTAs as a vehicle to advance a resource efficient and circular economy transition

Session 2.1 - Reflecting resource efficiency and circular economy objectives in regional trade agreements

Moderator: Shardul Agrawala, OECD Environment Directorate

Speakers:

• Aik Hoe Lim, WTO Trade and Environment Division (insights based on WTO notifications report)
• Shunta Yamaguchi , OECD Environment Directorate (insights based on T&CE reports)
• Christophe Bellmann, IISD and Malena Sell, SITRA (insights from the SITRA-IISD report on Incorporating Circular Economy Provisions in Regional Trade Agreements) 

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Session 2 - Continued

Session 2.2 - Regional perspectives and insights 

Moderator: Mari Carlson, Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland

Speakers:

• Nanno Mulder, International Trade and Integration Division, UN ECLAC (insights from a report on T&CE in LAC countries)
• Rachna Arora, EU-REI Team Leader, GIZ India (insights from international cooperation on circular economy in India)
• Bezawit Eshetu, Executive Team Member and Country Representative for Ethiopia, African Circular Economy Network (insights from circular economy iniiatives in the African region)

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Day 2: Friday, 11 June 2021

 

Session 3 - Potential of RTAs in addressing the nexus of illegal trade of environmental crime

Session 3.1 - The nexus of Illegal trade and environmental crime - state of play

Moderator: Louis Marechal, Directorate for Financial and Enterprise Affairs, OECD

Speakers:

• Aphrodite Smagadi, National Environmental Law Unit, Law Division, United Nations Environment Programme (insights from recent reports)
• Rory Corcoran, Illicit Markets Organized & Emerging Crime Directorate, Interpol (insights from World Atlas of Illicit Flows and Emerging criminal trends in the global plastics waste market) 
• Roux Raath, World Customs Organization (insights from the 2019 Illicit Trade Report and the WCO flagship Operations DEMTER)

Discussants:

• Ben van Rensburg, CITES Secretariat (updates from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITIES))
  
• Leon Van Der Wal, OECD Environment Directorate, and Clara Frezal, Trade and Agriculture Directorate (related OECD work on illegal trade in pesticides)

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Session 3 - Continued

Session 3.2 - Possibilities to use RTAin adressing the nexus of illegal trade and environmental crime

Moderator: Xavier Jardi, Ministry of the Economy and Finance, France

Speakers:

• Katy Sater, U.S. Trade Representative and Tiffany Prather, U.S. Department of State (Experience from US FTAs in tackling illegal trade and environmental crime)
• Jorge Guzmán, CAFTA-DR Secretariat for Environment Matters, Guatemala (Experience of CAFTA-DR and public submissions)
• Piotr Stryszowski, Senior Project Manager, Task Force on Countering Illicit Trade, Public Governance Directorate OECD (insights from the OECD Task Force on Countering Illicit Trade). 
  

Discussant:

• Javier Arribas-Quintana, DG Environment, European Commission (insights on regional iniatives to secure sustainable supply chains) 

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Summing up and next steps

• Shardul Agrawala, OECD Environment Directorate 
  
• Brett Longley, JWPTE Co-Chair

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Participants

This multi-stakeholder event was joined by 127 experts in the field of trade and environment from OECD and invited partner governments, international organisations, academia, the private sector and civil society.

 

Background

Environmental considerations are increasingly incorporated into RTAs to promote a broad range of environmental objectives and to ensure the mutual supportiveness of trade and environmental policies between like-minded Parties.

According to the TREND database, 1629 out of 730 agreements signed between 1947 and 2018 include some kind of reference to the environment. Parties aiming towards deeper economic integration increasingly include substantive environmental provisions in their RTAs to advance on a range of environmental policy goals. Since 2005, the OECD Joint Working Party on Trade and Environment (JWPTE) has been investigating the trends of environmental provisions in RTAs and their effects on the environment.

As a parallel effort under the auspices of the JWPTE, the OECD has been organising a number of workshops on RTAs and the environment to establish 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 and 2018); Paris, France (2010 and 2016); and Hanoi, Vietnam (2014). This was the first workshop held completely online.

 

Further readings

• Assessing Implementation of Environmental Provisions in Regional Trade Agreements
• Assessing the Effectiveness of Environmental Provisions in Regional Trade Agreements: An Empirical Analysis
• Greening regional trade agreements on investment
• Greening regional trade agreements: Subsidies related to energy and environmental goods
• Greening regional trade agreements on non-tariff measures through technical barriers to trade and regulatory co-operation
• International trade and circular economy - Policy alignment

 

Contact Us

For more information, please contact Shunta Yamaguchi ([email protected]) or Valentina Beomonte Zobel ([email protected]), Environment and Economy Integration Division at the OECD Environment Directorate.

 

Related links

• OECD Work on Regional Trade Agreements and the Environment
• OECD Work on International Trade, Resource Efficiency and Circular Economy