Baptists and Bootleggers for the Environment: The Origins of United States Unilateral Sanctions

Abstract

The United States has a long history of using or threatening import restrictions against other countries to gain their adherence to conservation measures. While these import restrictions are of questionable GATT-legality, the history of the 13 such current pieces of legislation suggests that they are not simply industry efforts to gain protection from foreign competition. As with other U.S. international environmental policies, sanctioning legislation arises from a complex interaction between industry and environmental actors. In these cases, due either to domestic or international regulation, U.S. industry actors are disproportionately disadvantaged relative to theirforeign competitors by legislation requiring them to uphold conservation standards. There may have been an initial battle between environmentalists and industry actors over imposing such standards, but once the standards are in place, a coalition of industry and environmentalists forms to internationalize the standards. Industry actors, who want their competitors either to uphold the same costly standards they must uphold or be prohibited from competing in the U.S. market, find a natural alliance with environmentalists in working to encourage broader conservation efforts. Evidence suggests that this type of coalition plays a wider role in the formation of U.S. international environmental policy.