ENVIRONMENTAL AND SUSTAINABILITY APPRAISAL
40. The Government has accepted our conclusion in
a previous report that "international agreements on issues
such as trade, investment, employment standards and environmental
protection should be the subject of focussed negotiations in appropriately
expert fora. However, we regard it as imperative that in these
fora the relationships between the proposals under discussion
and other initiatives, whether existing or in development, are
fully analysed from the outset. Such analyses must look both at
the risks of conflict and the opportunities for confluence".[80]
However, we were unconvinced that this approach has been put into
operation with regard to the WTO negotiations.
41. The main initiatives identified for us were the
EU's Sustainability Impact Assessment which is being conducted
by UK consultants, two seminars at the Royal Institute of International
Affairs and work by the Performance and Innovation Unit of the
Cabinet Office (PIU) on a strategy for 'ethical' non-trade issues
at the WTO (this latter work did not, to our surprise, rate a
mention in the Government's submission to us).[81]
Ministers and officials seemed relaxed about the timetable for
appraisal asserting that nothing will actually be negotiated at
Seattle and confident that "nothing very much" will
have occurred by way of negotiations by Spring next year. Mr Bridge,
DTI, assured us that trade negotiations proceed slowly and take
a long time.[82]
42. The Performance and Innovation Unit report is
set for completion by May 2000. The first phase of the SIA, the
definition of a methodology, has been completed. The second phase,
a broad assessment of the EU's negotiating objectives, is set
for completion by the Seattle summit. A third phase will commence
once an agenda has been agreed and will use the methodology developed
to inform the Commission's negotiations throughout their course.
In addition to this work we understand that at least Canada and
the US are committed to environmental impact appraisals. There
appears to be a consensus, including at the WTO, that there should
be cooperation between international partners to share the results
of the various studies.
43. We welcome these initiatives. However, we intended
the phrase "from the outset" to cover the selection
and framing of negotiating objectives as well as to inform discussions
on the scope of the agenda. Assessing negotiating objectives for
their impacts on sustainability, or anything else, after they
have been set seems like conducting an environmental impact assessment
for an airport after planning permission has been granted and
construction begun. The only remaining task is to identify possible
mitigation measures. NGOs criticised the work underway on similar
grounds and argued that the objectives for both the PIU study
and the EU contract were too narrow excluding, for example, the
possibility of making recommendations for changes to mainstream
proposals such as the sequencing of the implementation of liberalisation
initiatives to allow the development of complementary regulatory
capacity.[83]
Mr Mabey, WWF UK, told us that the EU SIA did not itself claim
to be anything more than a scoping study designed to identify,
from a theoretical point of view, where the real work needed to
be done. He said this did not perhaps fulfill the claims made
on its behalf by Government.[84]
In terms of the timetable, Mr Mabey said that the study would
have been of more benefit if it had been started, alongside other
preparations for the Round, two years ago.[85]
We accept Mr Meacher's response to this that it was always better
if such things were started before they were, but we believe that
a central lesson of the MAI experience had been that the environmental
dimension deserved consideration alongside the other facets of
sustainable development.
44. We are concerned that once again environmental
considerations have not been integrated into the development of
mainstream policy development but left to a later stage in terms
of both preparatory analysis and strategy development.
45. A further key position of the NGOs is that ex
post 'audit' of the implications of implementing the Uruguay Round
was the only sensible foundation for ex ante appraisal
of further negotiations.[86]
NGOs state that the EU has steadfastly refused to undertake such
an assessment of the Uruguay Round. Mr Meacher said the pressure
for further negotiations was building but that he accepted "that
part of those negotiations will certainly involve trying to take
note of lessons that arise from the Uruguay Round."[87]
We believe that new negotiations should do more than try to
take note of lessons from previous agreements. It seems axiomatic
that the impacts of the last set of agreements should be informing
negotiations of the next. This is unlikely to be accomplished
by individual WTO members acting in a piecemeal way, but needs
some explicit agreement within the Organisation, as well as inclusion
in any Declaration intended to shape negotiations.
80 First Report from the Committee, 1998-99, Multilateral
Agreement on Investment, HC58, paragraph 25. And see
Appendix to the Report. Back
81 Ev
p. 3 Back
82 See
QQ36 and 44 Back
83 QQ64
and 118 Back
84 Q76 Back
85 Q56 Back
86 Q121 Back
87 Q136 Back
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