WTO Blue-Green Blues: The Impact of U.S. Domestic Politics on Trade-Labor, Trade-Environment Linkages for the WTO's Future

Abstract

While scores of commentators have criticized the non-transparency of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in their examination of blue (trade-labor) and green (trade-environment) issues, they have often ignored the linkage between domestic politics in powerful states and international trade measures. They blur this crucial linkage that exacerbates conflicts and scuttles them to the WTO. Yet it is this underlying domestic-international, two-level game that also needs to be made more transparent, since its examination demonstrates that it is this nexus that gives rise to many trade-environment and trade-labor conflicts between countries.

Keywords: International, International Economic Law, International Law, Transatlantic Relations, Comparative Law, Law & Society

JEL Classification: K00, K33, K23