{"id":150,"date":"2016-06-09T14:00:46","date_gmt":"2016-06-09T18:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iisd.org\/toolkits\/sustainability-toolkit-for-trade-negotiators\/?page_id=150"},"modified":"2016-09-01T00:29:06","modified_gmt":"2016-09-01T04:29:06","slug":"2-1-basic-architecture","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/toolkits\/sustainability-toolkit-for-trade-negotiators\/2-housing-environment-within-the-agreement\/2-1-basic-architecture\/","title":{"rendered":"2.1 Basic Architecture"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The first choice to be made by parties negotiating a RTIA that includes environmental considerations is whether to include the environmental provisions within a side agreement or to structure them as a chapter within the agreement\u2019s text. The <em>substance<\/em> of those environmental provisions is explored in the next section, and in reality the substance matters much more than the form.<\/p>\n<p>Side agreements may be legally distinct agreements, though closely related to the trade agreement. Chapters in the trade agreement can be environment chapters or sustainable development chapters. Parties may also draft side letters on environmental matters. The various options are explored below. No recommendations are made as to these options; as noted above, the substance of the provisions is more significant than the form of those provisions.<\/p>\n<p>It bears noting that environmental issues are horizontal by nature, and they cannot be clinically isolated or exclusively contained in a side agreement or a RTIA chapter. Environmental side agreements and chapters entail important highlights, often framed in terms of soft law and aspirations, that may influence the interpretation of provisions in other parts of the agreement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The first choice to be made by parties negotiating a RTIA that includes environmental considerations is whether to include the environmental provisions within a side agreement or to structure them as a chapter within the agreement\u2019s text. The substance of those environmental provisions is explored in the next section, and in reality the substance matters<a class=\"excerpt-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/toolkits\/sustainability-toolkit-for-trade-negotiators\/2-housing-environment-within-the-agreement\/2-1-basic-architecture\/\" title=\"Read2.1 Basic Architecture\">&#8230; Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"parent":117,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"0"},"class_list":["post-150","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/toolkits\/sustainability-toolkit-for-trade-negotiators\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/toolkits\/sustainability-toolkit-for-trade-negotiators\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/toolkits\/sustainability-toolkit-for-trade-negotiators\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/toolkits\/sustainability-toolkit-for-trade-negotiators\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/toolkits\/sustainability-toolkit-for-trade-negotiators\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/toolkits\/sustainability-toolkit-for-trade-negotiators\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/150\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/toolkits\/sustainability-toolkit-for-trade-negotiators\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/toolkits\/sustainability-toolkit-for-trade-negotiators\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}