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Abstract The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1947 (GATT 1947) contains exceptions related to environmental protection. Similar exceptions also appear in the World Trade Organization (WTO) rules. While these exceptions aim to strike a balance between free trade and environmental protection, the excessive reliance on such exceptions to reconcile their relationship is incompatible with the increasing importance of environmental protection and fails to satisfy the actual needs of members of the international community members to carry out international cooperation in the field of environmental protection.
The rapid development of regional trade agreements (RTAs) has created ample scope for the deep integration of international trade rules and environmental protection issues. By employing environmental provisions as a vehicle, contracting parties are able to incorporate their concerns about environmental protection into these agreements. A comparison of environmental provisions in RTAs across different periods reveals three general trends in their evolution: the first one is expanding coverage, whose manifestations are that environmental provisions have moved beyond mere exceptions related to environmental protection and encompass a much broader range of contents; the second one is increasing visibility, which is evidenced by the inclusion of environmental protection in the stated objectives of RTAs and the growing prevalence of dedicated environmental chapters; and the third one is strengthened enforceability, which is reflected in the widespread adoption of implementation supervision mechanisms and hybrid dispute settlement mechanisms. The aforementioned changes in environmental provisions in RTAs have been driven by a combination of factors: the first one is shared interests among nations regarding environmental protection; the second one is the need to normalize international cooperation concerning environmental protection; the third one is cognitive updates of the relationship between free trade and environmental protection; and the fourth one is the expansion of the scope of RTAs.
Compared to the general trends in environmental provisions, the environmental provisions in China’s existing RTAs still fall short in terms of coverage, visibility, and enforceability. Therefore, China should actively promote the modernization of environmental provisions when concluding new RTAs or upgrading existing ones. First, China should prudently and rationally expand the scope of environmental provisions, while avoiding being overly ambitious and balancing stability and flexibility. Second, China should enhance the visibility of environmental provisions by incorporating statements regarding environmental protection into the objectives of RTAs and establishing dedicated environmental chapters. Finally, China should strengthen the enforceability of environmental provisions by refining implementation supervision mechanisms and expanding the scope of application for hybrid dispute settlement mechanisms.
Both the proposals and the outline for the 15th Five-Year Plan in China emphasize the need to continuously improve ecological and environmental quality and promote the conclusion of more RTAs. The promulgation of the Ecological and Environmental Code in 2026 marks an unprecedented level of attention and importance attached to environmental protection in China. Meanwhile, China is actively expanding its network of RTAs. Against this backdrop, in future RTAs concluded by China, the breadth and depth of the integration of trade and environmental issues will have new development opportunities. This paper contributes to the implementation of the 15th Five-Year Plan missions by offering guidance on how China can align with the general trends in environmental provisions and fully and appropriately integrate its own environmental protection concerns into international trade rules.
The innovations of this paper lie in two aspects: first, it elucidates the general trends in environmental provisions in RTAs by observing and summarizing, on the basis of a systematic comparison of texts from different periods, the evolutionary trajectory of these provisions across the dimensions of coverage, visibility, and enforceability; second, it proposes a Chinese approach to refining environmental provisions in RTAs, arguing that China should not simply replicate the practices of the US and the EU but should uphold the global governance philosophy of “extensive consultation, joint efforts, and shared benefits”, fully take into consideration the development status and interests of its trading partners, and advance the modernization of environmental provisions in RTAs in a gradual manner.
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Published: 01 October 2026
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