Thai shrimp, sea turtles, mangrove forests and the WTO: Innovative environmental protection under the international trade regime

Georgetown International Environmental Law Review, Summer 2003 by Ramangkura, Varamon

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.

-John Muir1

People need to understand there is a trade-off between prosperity and nature.

- Chakrit Ridmontri2

If there are no mangrove forests, the sea will have no meaning. It is like having a tree with no roots, for the mangroves are the roots of the sea.

- Fisherman on the Coast of the Andaman Sea3

I. INTRODUCTION

As the world becomes increasingly globalized, almost all countries have experienced greater integration into the global economy.4 The leading role of the World Trade Organization (WTO) means that all member countries - developed and developing - must comply with its rules and regulations in order to trade internationally.5 With the liberalization of global trade, developing countries have been under pressure to improve their economies relative to developed countries for decades. Exploitation of natural resources has been a common practice because of their abundance, easy access, and low extraction technology costs.6 The result is that long-term considerations are sacrificed for short-term benefits, often causing environmental and social problems down the road.

Consequently, conflict has arisen prominently between developed and developing countries over the balance of free trade and environmental health. Most developed countries have set high environmental protection standards for the production and quality of internationally traded goods. On the other hand, a developing country may disregard the adverse effects of the production process on the environment in a drive to lower production costs, expand exports, and become competitive in the world market. Thailand exemplifies this trend. As the demand for shrimp in the world markets has increased, many developing countries have entered the shrimp farming industry, and Thailand became the world's leading exporter of farmed shrimp in the mid-1990s. The largest export markets for Thai shrimp are the United States, Japan, and the European Union (EU), which together are responsible for more than ninety percent of Thai shrimp exports.7 However, rapid intensification of production techniques has led to largely unsustainable practices that result in environmental degradation and create social problems. For instance, Thailand has lost more than fifty percent of its total mangrove resources since 1961.8 The situation in Thailand is far from an isolated case; similar impacts have been reported in shrimp farming areas throughout Southeast Asia and South America.9

Simultaneously with the Thai shrimp industry's shift to dependence on foreign markets, the globalization of economic activities worldwide has led to heightened environmental awareness and concern.10 With increased access to information on a timely basis, monitoring potential trouble spots has become much easier. Further, only a fine line separates contemporary domestic environmental problems, and global environmental problems like deforestation, endangered species, and ozone depletion.

Recent environmental disputes under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the WTO indicate that the WTO may allow member countries to impose trade sanctions on each other for environmental violations so long as those policies are in compliance with Article XX of the GATT.11 In the recent Shrimp-Turtle case, in which Thailand was a complainant, the WTO upheld the right of member countries to impose environmental standards on each other for the first time. The case did not significantly impact the Thai shrimp industry because the challenged U.S. environmental law concerned only wild harvested shrimp, which Thailand does not export extensively. However, the case reveals that the Thai shrimp industry may be the subject of future trade sanctions for failure to meet environmental protection standards for farmed shrimp. This outcome would bring crippling results to the Thai economy, as Thailand is currently one of the biggest exporters of farmed shrimp in the world.

Shrimp farming, however, has also created a number of social and environmental problems, such as the degradation of mangrove forests. The environmental problems generated from Thai shrimp farms have also received international attention. The Mangrove Action Project (MAP),12 supported by the nongovernmental organization (NGO) Earth Island Institute, has started a campaign in the United States against shrimp products from Thailand. These groups aim to increase consumer awareness in the United States of the detrimental effect of shrimp farms on the "tropical forest of the sea."13 In an effort to enforce implementation of U.S. Public Law Section 609, which prohibits the importation of shrimp from countries that do not meet certain environmental standards for shrimping, the Earth Island Institute instigated the Shrimp-Turtle case against the U.S. Secretary of the State.14 Such activism, combined with the legal ruling in the Shrimp-Turtle case, could potentially lead to another import ban on Thai shrimp production. Because the United States provides a large market for Thai shrimp, the United States has both the economic power and environmental incentive to impose such a ban. However, unlike the Shrimp-Turtle case, in which the ban only covered wild harvested shrimp, an import ban on farmed shrimp would cause enormous damage to the Thai economy.