Globalizing Trade Agreements

Relaxation of regulatory standards (whether intentional or not) is a result of unilateral exercise of influence.  In the context of free trade agreements, specially those adopted by WTO ( World Trade Organization ) is one of the principal drivers of globalization.

Differences in national regulatory approaches can lead to trade disputes when exporters of a nation would attest that another’s higher standard is a non-tariff barrier to trade whose principal purpose is to protect domestic industry from foreign competition.  Needlessly, a legitimate exercise of a  state’s sovereign police power to protect the consumer and the environment.  Like an international system, if a dispute reaches a sufficiently higher level.  The state with the lower standard may seek through litigation through a trade agreement’s dispute settlement mechanism.

Free trade agreements meet their goal of enhancing human welfare by limiting governmental interventions (despite the notion of a would be free market).  International obligations relating to trade are conclusively negative in the sense that they place constraints on governmental action.  Reckoning an environmental protection, public health and consumer protection point of view, this scenario is equivalent to deregulation – in the fact of reducing the level of governmental agreements by virtue of their negative obligations are inherently ( by and large) deregulatory.

Environmental protection, by opposite, anticipates affirmative governmental intrusions in the market place to offset market failures.  It is important to note that international trade agreements do not mandatory insinuate any maximum standards for protection of the environment or human health.  Rather self constraining, if chosen to regulate.