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The trade and environment policy and research agendas have expanded rapidly. Following conclusion of the Uruguay Round the agenda of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) expanded to incorporate a number of environment related issues, such as public health, agriculture and sustainable development. This proposed concerted action aims to ensure the debate between these research centres and to draw new participants into the process. It also provides for dialogue with policy makers.

The trade and environment policy and research agendas have expanded rapidly. Following conclusion of the Uruguay Round the agenda of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) expanded to incorporate a number of environment-related issues, such as public health, agriculture and sustainable development. The rapid expansion of the trade and environment agenda has created a major area of research that is attracting researchers in virtually all member states.

This proposed concerted action aims to ensure the debate between these research centres and to draw new participants into the process. It also provides for dialogue with policy-makers. The concerted action is structured around a series of substantive questions and intends to respond to the dynamics of this evolving research agenda and to generate new impulses for research.

The project agenda foresees the organisation of three annual members’ meetings to identify and discuss priority research issues and three annual conferences to present current research to a wider audience.

FEEM is a member of the consortium and attends the meetings providing information on its own research work on CAT&E-related issues, providing peer review of the literature surveys and state-of-the-art reports drafted by the lead participants to the network, and expressing its own views on trade and environment priorities.

The concerted action started in December 2002 and will last 36 months. It is co-ordinated by Prof. Onno Kuik from IVM, The Netherlands, and involves other two lead participants and 18 European members.

The trade and environment policy and research agendas have expanded rapidly. Following conclusion of the Uruguay Round the agenda of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) encompasses new issues, such as agriculture, trade in services, intellectual property rights, investments, competition policy, and government procurement. As the WTO agenda expanded, so have the intersections between trade policy and other policy areas, such as environment, consumer protection, sustainable development, human rights, public health and labour. This large policy agenda urgently needs to be structured in order to identify research priorities and to reach some consensus conclusions.
This proposed concerted action aims to ensure the debate between the research centres at the forefront of research on trade and environment policy issues, and to draw new participants into the process. It also provides for dialogue with policy makers. The concerted action is structured around a series of substantive questions and intends to respond to the dynamics of this evolving research agenda and to generate new impulses for research. The project agenda foresees the organisation of three annual members’ meetings to identify and discuss priority research issues and three annual conferences to present current research to a wider audience.
The main objectives of the concerted action are:

  • To foster an in-depth debate on the broad range of issues arising in the trade and environment agenda involving policy makers, other stakeholders and researchers. The major issues to be addressed are: issues arising from existing trade agreements, issues arising from related environmental policies and institutional issues;
  • To hold annual members’ meetings and conferences for three years to develop and focus research in the trade and environment agenda;
  • To promote the EU research leadership and improve the research net-working and capacity building between EU countries, providing support for the EU efforts to integrate environmental concerns into trade policy;
  • To develop new collaborative research projects;
  • To widely disseminate results among researchers and stakeholders.

Main outputs of this Concerted Action will include three members’ meetings and three conferences, as well as the production of state-of-the-art reports and literature surveys on trade and the environment-related issues.

FEEM is one of the members of the Consortium and will attend the annual members’ meetings and conferences providing peer review of the literature surveys and state of the art reports prepared by the principal contractors.