Rising Together: Clarifying the International Environmental Marketing Claim Regulatory Landscape so that Developing Country Exporters May More Effectively Market Their Environmentally Responsible Products

Abstract

This Article considers the impact of state and non-state actor environmental marketing claim regulatory schemes on developing countries and suggests two clarifications to the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) that will improve market access for developing country exporters of environmentally responsible products, without endangering member states’ environmental protection schemes.

The Article focuses attention on national and international state and non-state actor environmental marketing claim criteria setting bodies to assess whether and to what extent the actors consider developing country interests in their schemes. Finding that many firm-specific and industry-specific non-state actors fail to offer any consideration of developing country interests in their standardization and certification schemes, likely because they lack any legal obligation to do, the Article suggests two clarifications to the TBT that will incentivize non-state actors to integrate developing country interests into their schemes. First, the Article suggests an explanatory note to the TBT definition of non-governmental body, which clarifies that non-governmental bodies include non-state actor standardizing bodies. Second, the Article recommends an explanatory note to TBT Article 4.1, which clarifies the scope of members’ duties to take reasonable measures to ensure that non-governmental bodies are complying with the TBT. These clarifications will result in improved market access for developing country exporters that wish to export environmentally responsible products to developed countries and lead to a rise in environmental benefits to developing and developed countries.

Keywords: environment, marketing, developing, WTO, trade, incentive, compliance

JEL Classification: K2