trade will benefit all, and their concern for the environment is shown in the existence of a council concerned with only environmental matters. TheCommittee on Trade and Environment, or CTE, was created during the foundation of the WTO to deal with a broad-based mandate dealing with the relationships between trade and the environment. There exist many provisions in the WTO to give the CTE the right to change policies when an environmental issue is at question. When an agreement is in dispute, the CTE will interpret the section, usually from the original GATT Articles, and make a ruling. Such a dispute occurred between the WTO and the United States dealing with a US imposed ban on imported shrimp from certain countries where they declared their fishing methods were improper. In this case, the fishers failed to use turtle-excluding devices in their nets, causing the unwanted and inhumane deaths of many rare sea turtles. However, the WTO and CTE ruled that the United States could not impose such a ban because this and other bans like it are illegal trade barriers. Essentially, this decision let it be known that the U.S. cannotdecide whom it gets to trade with, and what the country trades. Countless examples of these types of incidents have arisen, along with numerous issues of water and forest conservation. With injustices visible in this multi-lateral trading system, and these problems being dealt with poorly by the WTO, it becomes obvious that this organization is a harmful force to our planet. Effects of the World Trade Organization on the Environment Environmentalists around the globe have united to visibly show resentment for the policies of the WTO, seen especially in the recent protests in Seattle and Prague. Of particular success was the protest in Seattle in 1999, where activists from all over the country converged to completely shut down the meeting, as no actual work or agreements ever were looked at. One of the very controversi...
