Discover the course: Technical Barriers to Trade in Pursuit of Sustainable Development

This course will explore how to harness the international trade system to advance sustainable development. The course will cover legal and economic aspects of the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) as it relates to sustainable development.

We will look at what is now permitted under the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) and what should be permitted were the international regulatory architecture to be revised to better meet the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs).

First, the legal foundation of GATT Articles III and XX and the TBT Agreement will be discussed from the perspective of the SDGs; then we will explore whether existing international trade rules are adequate to meet environmental, governmental, labour and human rights challenges.

Our thesis is that international trade rules and standards and regulations must evolve to meet the SDGs in general, and climate change in particular.

Our case studies will draw upon the Climate Change agreements, the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), and over-exploitation of palm oil in environmentally sensitive tropical regions.

Summer Academy 2024
Course 4 - Technical Barriers to Trade in Pursuit of Sustainable Development

8-12 July 2024
Lecturers: Arthur Appleton, Tetyana Payosova and Frank van Tongeren
ECTS: 3