United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)

UNCTAD is the UN's principle body in the field of trade and development. Established in 1964 in Geneva, it meets every four years at the Ministerial level. The most recent meeting, in Cartagena, Columbia in 1992, gave UNCTAD a strong mandate to address sustainable development issues, among which is the interaction between trade matters and environmental policies.

Two divisions of UNCTAD are particularly active in the area. The Trade and Environment Section of the International Trade Division has carried out a number of excellent country case studies on trade-environment linkages in specific developing countries, as well as several thematic studies, under its Technical Cooperation Programme. They have also done analytical research on particular issues, such as eco-labelling, and are active in training on the issues of trade and environment in develping countries.

An excellent summary (about 30 pages) of their work to date in many areas, which is a good primer on the trade and sustainable development nexus, was submitted to the CSD in 1996. A final version is due to be submitted in 1997.

Also the Environmental Issues Section of the Commodities Division has done several solid case studies of the enviromental effects of trade in specific commodities, as well as focusing on the practicalities of internalizing costs in traded commodities. It has also explored the promotion of environmentaly friendly products from developing countries. See links to studies below.

UNCTAD Publications

By a special cooperative arrangement with UNCTAD, IISD has agreed to post to the web selected research from UNCTAD's trade-sustainable development work. The documents below were produced by UNCTAD's Trade and Commodities Division, and constitute excellent contributions to the scholarship on trade and sustainable development.