Trade in the Service of Sustainable Development

Olivier De Schutter was the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food (2008–14) and is now a Member of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. He teaches at the University of Louvain (UCL) and at SciencesPo (Paris). He has been a visiting Professor at Columbia University and at UC Berkeley.

• Introduction 1. Setting the Stage: The Limits of Fragmentation I. Trade and Labour Rights II. Trade and Environmental Standards III. The Use of Environmental and Labour Conditionalities in Trade Policies 2. Sanctions Against Goods or Services that do not Comply: WTO Disciplines I. The Core Disciplines of the WTO Regime II. The ‘Likeness’ of Goods and Services and the Product/Process Distinction III. The ‘General Exceptions’ Clauses of Article XXGATT and Article XIV GATS IV. Conclusion 3. The Special Regime of Border Tax Adjustments: Levelling the Playing FieldI. The Notion of Border Tax Adjustments II. Border Tax Adjustments under WTO Law III. Determining the Level of the Compensatory Tax IV. Conclusion 4. Generalized Systems of Preferences: The ‘ Conditional Preferences ’ Approach I. The Origins of the Generalized System of Preferences II. The Emergence of ‘Special Incentives’ within the EU GSP Scheme III. The Three Layers of the Current EU GSP Scheme 5. Labelling Schemes: Supporting Ethical Consumerism I. The Rise of the Debate on Labelling Schemes II. Compatibility with WTO Law 6. Public Procurement: The Power of the Purse 7. Conclusions I. ‘Sanctions’ for Non-compliance with Labour Rights or Environmental Standards II. ‘Carbon Equalization’ through Border Tax Adjustments: Levelling the Playing Field III. The EU Generalized System of Preferences: Making Preferences Conditional IV. Labelling Schemes: Supporting Ethical Consumerism V. Government Procurement: The Power of the Purse