Reconciling Trade and Environmental Conflicts in International Law: WTO Agreements and the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (Routledge Research in International Law)

Sustainable development calls for a balance to be struck between the promotion of trade and environmental protection.This book investigates how to strike such a balance in practice by assessing the relationship between WTO Agreements and the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. The book provides a systematic exploration of how the general international rules on conflict of norms apply to the relationship between the two WTO Agreements and the Protocol, and the extent to which this specific relationship might influence how treaty conflicts should be dealt with generally in international law.Based on both doctrinal and original empirical evidence, this book goes beyond the principle of systemic integration in treaty interpretation which is generally relied upon as a conflict avoidance technique at the international adjudicative level.It further discerns a number of principles that underlie systemic integration, including the principles of mutual supportiveness, good faith, cooperation, and h