Trade and Environment: On the Need to Improve Information and Decision Making

Abstract

Policies to promote free trade and to protect the environment can conflict. Efforts are underway to reduce the potential for conflict and to make trade and environmental goals more compatible, an outcome likely to contribute to sustainable development. This task will require better information about trade and environment interactions. It will also require more coordi nation of trade and environment policies both nationally and internationally, including new guidelines and institutional arrangements to avoid conflicts and to resolve them when they do occur.