So you can shoot down a ban on, for example, tuna caught with techniques that kill dolphins by proposing an alternate policy that could arguably achieve the same end, without every having to show that the alternate policy is efficient, nor whether it actually has any hope of being implemented or, if requiring agreement among different nations, being agreed to.
If that interpretation is shifted to being the most reasonable policy to pursue that objective, there may be an opening.
And the best way to push through a test case that involves that kind of change in interpretation would be heavy pressure from the US combined with the EU.
Obviously that kind of pressure would never emerge without a change in US president. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
Note that a US BTA (assuming a US cap and trade or carbon tax is put into place ... which means, after 2008) could provide a combined carrot/stick for performance by being based on carbon emissions per US$ GDP at current exchange rates so that ... given that a cap and trade is the policy most likely to be implemented given the US division of executive and legislative powers ... that determines the number of carbon permits that must be bought to import a certain quantity from a particular country.
On that measure, it seems highly likely that China would face a steep BTA.
Countries emitting less than the US per US$ GDP could be excused from the tax. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
... a tariff that is implemented to support an enviromental (or other social) objective must be shown to be the only way to conceivably pursue that objective.
You put the monkeys in charge of the banana plantation and this is the sort of nonsense that results.
You have specialists in international trade decide whether a specific policy is required to protect a certain endangered species, and they take the threat of trade restriction more seriously than the loss of a line of DNA that developed before we developed fire or language. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
