Environmental Standards and India's Market Access Concerns

Abstract:     
Trade liberalization and improved access to the world's markets lie at the heart of the sustainable development paradigm for developing countries. It can be growth in aggregate income and its distribution across various economic segments of society, efficiency in allocation of resources, generation of finances for development, or transfer and application of improved technologies and best practices. The expansion and diversification of export opportunities, including diversification into higher value products, also intensified the debate regarding the environmental protection measures and the international trade. The debate on the impact of trade liberalization has intensified with a growing literature on the effects of international trade on the environment. Many participants in the trade and environment debate fear that there could be conflicts between trade liberalization and environmental concerns. The issues of environmental regulation and international competitiveness revolve around the question of harmonization of standards and it is generally observed that competitive deregulation could lead to downward harmonization of environmental standards. This paper addresses reconciliation of these two - somewhat disparate - points of view. It discusses the key issues related to market access, particularly the impact of environmental measures on the access from an Indian perspective in case of two products: (1) marine products, and (2) tea. This paper covers a canvas that includes a background discussion on market access issues related to environmental requirements, emergence of environment-related issues in the WTO agenda, environmental provisions in various agreements that could pose a non-tariff barrier, discussion on experiences with specific non-tariff barriers that have posed a market access concern in individual exportable sectors of India, along with developments in domestic regulation often in response to external requirements. This paper concludes by recapitulating India's past submissions on Item 6 of the CTE agenda relating to market access issues and providing the way forward. Clearly, the thrust is on developing a position or stand for India that is based on sound logic and concrete experiences from specific export-oriented industries.

Accepted Paper Series