Untapping the potential of Preferential Trade Agreements to promote forest protection: A comparison on forest-related provisions and their enforcement in the US and EU PTAs

Abstract

The EU and the US are the actors with the highest number of environmental provisions in their Preferential Trade Agreements. Since 1999, specific rules on forest governance and Sustainable Forest Management have been incorporated in their PTAs. The implementation of such forest-related provisions in PTAs is mostly linked to cooperation among the Parties. However, in cases of noncompliance, PTAs provide for bilateral consultations, the application of the general dispute settlement mechanism, and even trade sanctions. The enforcement approaches differ in the US and the EU PTAs. This study focuses on the question of the potential of PTAs to contribute to forest governance and SFM and analyses the disputes that arose so far. It shows how forest issues may play a key role in negotiating and implementing PTAs, promoting compliance of Multilateral Environmental Agreements, and promoting public participation in environmental matters. The paper concludes that PTAs provide further options to develop and implement International Forest Law beyond the Multilateral Environmental Agreements.