WTO Law and Environmental Processes and Production Methods (PPMs): A Deconstruction

In principle, WTO members can adopt PPM measures to protect the environment, provided certain conditions are met to prevent the misuse of these measures for protectionist purposes. In practice, the judicial review of such measures in the WTO context is punctuated by practical difficulties, and is fraught with intractable uncertainty: most PPM regulations that were challenged passed on principle but failed on specific details related to the dispute at hand. This article aims to contribute to the PPM discussion by providing critical and deconstructive perspectives on trade law. It argues that the challenges in assessing WTO compliance of PPMs stem from the indeterminacy of open-textured trade rules, the limits of a ‘systemic integration’ approach to trade law, and a contested science-policy interface. Moving from these critical insights, the article explores potential pathways for reform in trade law, grounded in critical legal scholarship. It suggests a shift from standards to rules, from multilateral agreements to plurilateral, issue-specific agreements, and from trade ministries to multi-interest trade governance— all this supported by sectoral or issue-specific ‘due restraint’ arrangements within the WTO based on political compromise.