Schmidheiny, Stephan and The Business Council for Sustainable Development
Abstract
The ideal of “free trade” is today under attack from two different camps: those who would intervene for the sake of the environment, and those who are motivated to intervene on the basis of new theoretical concepts – reciprocal trade, negotiated trade, and managed trade. The authors feel that it would be a great tragedy if the sustained efforts on the part of the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) suffered a reversal. This selection argues that unless nations trade, they cannot develop and therefore free trade has a role to play in progress toward sustainable development. Taking a long-term perspective, it follows then that economic growth, trade expansion and environmental protection are goals that can only be reached in conjunction.
