Enhancing Synergies and Mutual Supportiveness of MEAs and the WTO - A Synthesis Report

The purpose of this paper is to summarize and synthesize the output of a series of UNEP sponsored meetings, which have explored how to realize synergies and reduce potential tensions among trade and environmental policies, rules and institutions. Five meetings have taken place between June 1999 and June 2001 bringing together the Secretariats of the World Trade Organization (WTO), multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) and UNEP, in most cases also with governments and NGOs. This synthesis is used to generate proposed next steps for this “MEA-WTO process” in the final section of this paper.