Development and Environment in Early World Trade Debates

This chapter discusses and analyses the history of development and environment concerns, in an international trade context, and in doing so, builds a timeline (between 1947 and 1994) which traces the development of conversations and debates around these issues at the international level. It begins by discussing the context and time period within which development concerns became part of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) debate, and then proceeds to a discussion of the sources of conversations around environmental concerns. It concludes by discussing how at the start of the new World Trade Organization (WTO) (in 1994), tensions existed between constituencies interested in trade-led economic growth, constituencies seeking trade to support development and countries wishing to make links between trade and the environment.