The Legal Links between Free Trade Agreements and Multilateral Environmental Agreements

The drive to include explicit references to multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) in free trade agreements (FTAs) has been largely domestic, borne of a period that viewed these distinct regimes of international law as requiring greater coordination in case of conflict or overlap. Instead, FTA practice (initially driven from Washington and Brussels) has shown how MEAs can be linked to FTAs through a range of methods and for different purposes. This chapter traces some of the more interesting innovations and reflects on three developments that mark recent practice: the inclusion of dynamic mechanisms for implementation and ongoing governance, the increasing sectorization of MEA linkages, and the influence such linkages have on our understanding of disputes and diplomacy in the trade–environment space.