The WTO should also have a strong, permanent trade and environment committee and must, unlike the GATT, conduct its proceedings in public and respond to the needs and environmental concerns of local communities. In addition, the WTO should overhaul existing GATT rules to encourage the inclusion of environmental costs in the price of traded goods. Fair trade measures designed to protect the global environment should be exempt from GATT rules. And finally, GATT rules must not conflict with existing, hard-won environmental agreements. It is not too late.
Sustainable development is now part of every country's development plans.
The environment is on the world agenda as never before. When the Dutch government considered adopting a carbon tax before other EU countries, many transnational companies threatened to move out of the Netherlands and direct new investments elsewhere. German chemical companies are threatening to relocate outside Europe because it costs as much to control pollution in Europe as it does to cover all production expenses in some developing countries. Farmers in developing countries, particularly in India and the Far East, fear that the world's largest seed firms will, in time, be charging them huge royalties on slightly modified versions of seeds the farmers themselves have developed. They see the wisdom and skill of generations of farmers being patented by transnational companies eager to develop new insecticides and crop varieties to sell at huge profit on world markets.